“I think music is a human right,” says Kate Waters. “It’s something every person should feel free and be encouraged to embrace.” It’s an ethos that drives her art as well as her professional life; Waters is a neurologically-trained and Board-Certified music therapist. She has used music to help autistic and terminally ill children, veterans with PTSD, survivors of strokes, and people of all ages with developmental disabilities. “It’s fascinating how music affects us as humans, not just emotionally, but cognitively and physically too.” Her passion for its power is evident, and personal.

Waters self-produced and recorded her sophomore album and first studio release, ‘Some Comfort’ at Red Tree Recording Studio in Magnolia, Texas—in just four days, an enthralling display of musical instinct, evidently inherited. She is the grandchild of professional violinists, the daughter of guitar-strumming hippies, and was trained as a classical pianist. Raised in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, Waters’ soulful Americana songs draw from her folk roots and bluegrass influences.

Hope—specifically the kind that’s hard fought-for—is the undercurrent of Waters’ new full-length. She finds light in every hardship, and never spares us the dirty, difficult work of searching for it. That honesty to the process lends even her most anthemic offerings a human authenticity, the feeling that we’ve stood by her side in every battle, and she, ours. So when Waters promises a happy ending, we believe her.