Sgt. Splendor

Kate Vargas and Eric McFadden of Sgt. Splendor

Kate Vargas

A reformed wild child, in recent years Kate Vargas has traded the party for meditation, yoga, clean eating and a renewed focus on what she values most—her music. The New Mexico-raised, NYC-based artist is building ever more mindfully on her sound, and the music press is taking notice, Vargas receiving praise from a variety of respected outlets including Billboard, NPR, Noisey, and the Huffington Post, the latter assessing, “There is an unlimited amount of potential in this superstar on the rise.”

Vargas has packed houses from Ireland’s Westport Folk and Bluegrass Festival to The Troubadour in London, The Mansion on O Street in Washington D.C. to New York’s Bowery Electric. Featuring her singular folk-style storytelling, Vargas’ songs are grounded in a darkly melodic, reverb-washed sonic palette of dream-pop, dusty folk and junkyard blues, all carried by rough-hewn vocals and guitar playing. In equal measure, she channels a surprising array of artists, from Tom Waits, Fiona Apple, and

16 Horsepower to Lana Del Rey and K. Flay. 

 Her debut, the DIY affair Down to My Soul, was released in 2014, hinting at the promise of a vibrant new voice. Her follow-up, 2016’s Strangeclaw, was recorded at New York’s Mercy Sound Studios (Blondie, Macy Gray) and mastered at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London, capturing Vargas’ impressive growth as an artist in gorgeous fidelity.

Vargas really hit her stride with 2018’s For the Wolfish & Wandering, connecting with audiences like never before, culminating in invitations to perform on NPR’s Mountain Stage, an official showcase at Nashville’s AmericanaFest, several performances at the 30A Songwriters Festival, as well as her songs appearing on television shows Stumptown (ABC), Midnight, Texas (NBC) and Good Trouble (Freeform). 

With Rumpumpo, Vargas continues her meteoric rise with songs that stir the emotional cauldron, blazing a genre-bending path that is both sonically and lyrically daring. 

PRESS

 - SPIN / “a sterling effort that allows for her distinctive gravelly voice to shine alongside her blend of melodic folk and blues.”

 - NPR / “raggedly delicate vocals and the kind of sonic landscape that conjures other worlds.”

 - Rolling Stone / “Kate Vargas’ ‘Glorieta to the Holy Place’ creaks and sighs with otherworldly atmosphere”

 - American Songwriter / “this year’s most unconventionally intoxicating and intricate album.”

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