Katie Belle knows how exhausting the nights without sleeping can be, and she has invested that exhaustion into something surprisingly blissful in Bad Dreams. This electro-synth pop jewel converts the aggravation of sleeplessness into a gleaming dance floor declaration, in which anxious frailty comes face-to-face with unstoppable vitality.
The Atlanta based artist has created a song that beats with contradiction in the most positive way possible. Her lyrics flow over smooth production and this sets up a close conflict between the personal anguish she is singing of and the smooth, radio-ready sound that encircles it. Collaborating with producer Fabio Campedelli in Los Angeles, Katie Belle has discovered a musical happy medium-music which does not deny the darkness but still does not eat it up.
The best thing about Bad Dreams is the duality of it. The words are addressed to any person who has wasted hours staring at the ceiling with the brain going round and round, and the production is very much on the move. It is cathartic pop at its best, three and a half minutes of escape to those who are most in need. Katie Belle does not simply write about insomnia, she is inventing a cure to it, a stop to the problem covered with synth pads and driving beats.
After the successful single Cigarette and on the brink of her much anticipated EP People Pleaser, Katie Belle is still proving herself as an artist who is not afraid of honesty that is not gilded. This song is a demonstration of a musician who has travelled years perfecting her sound, having travelled between Atlanta and LA to perfect her art. The outcome is smooth, self-assured pop music with real heart and soul--evidence that Katie Belle has found not only her true voice, but also her true self. Bad dreams is not just another restless night but rather it makes something out of it that is beautiful and transcendent.
