Interview: Katara spent years bottling up all the joy on its new album 'These Days'

It started in the DMs. In 2018, Natalie DePergola saw Seth Adam Lynn on the timeline of a mutual friend, Shankh Lahiri, an esteemed tabla player and leader of Wahh World Fusion Band. Lynn was studying the art of Indian classical drumming, but there was a picture of him with the harp. She knew they had to play together.

“I just saw his page and reached out. ‘Hey, do you want to play in my band?’” DePergola told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. “I feel like I’ve sent a bunch of those texts to other musicians.”

Depergola—who started playing professionally at the age of nine—was 18 at the time and in a band called Garden Club. She’d begun venturing out to make more original music with collaborators and shared a video recorded at Tampa’s since-shuttered La La Mansion.

“The first time I ever met you was at your house for a rehearsal,” Lynn remembered. “In that old garage.”

Six years after that DM, DePergola and Lynn—who perform as Katara—are in his Pinellas Park studio, both decompressing from a long day of teaching. They’ve been practicing harder than ever for a concert celebrating the release of their long-awaited debut LP These Days.
Looking back at those first days, Lynn remembers an instant musical connection and how similar he and DePergola were in their styles—both refusing to step on each others’ toes. “We kind of understand each other, we kind of sit in this similar energy that feels really unique and special,” she added.

Over time Garden Club changed names to Prince Tanuki; the band added, then shed, members. DePergola and Lynn’s musical connection quickly evolved into a friendship, and they’re been virtually inseparable since.

“It sort of became like a commitment to each other,” Lynn, who started playing harp at Ybor City’s Philip Shore Elementary School, explained.

After lending their immense talents to other projects across the Bay area, the soft-spoken duo wondered what it would be like if they pursued the things they wanted to do artistically or put the harp and drums up front.

“I think it was special for us to step into a role of acknowledging that idea that, ‘Maybe if we work together and write together—that can be something unique,” DePergola said.

In the course of a year, Katara spent roughly 50 days at Lakeland’s Vanguard Room with engineer Evan Eliason and emerged with one of the most joyous, optimistic and forward-looking albums released in the Bay area over the last decade.

On 12 tracks, DePergola plays not just her custom ddrum kit, but bongos, shakers, vibra slap, chimes, tambourines, and more—all while Lynn gives voice to harp in ways many listeners have probably never heard.
“The harp is just such a misunderstood thing, and it’s very underestimated as far as what it can do,” Lynn said. In his hands, the instrument invented 17 centuries ago sounds bluesy (“Kerala”), dramatic (“Dunes”), and tropical, too (the Paul Simon-channeling “Ophelia”). He even reinvents Debussy for a tribute to his new wife (“Lorena”).

Lynn and DePergola get an assist from saxophonist Nick Bredal on one of the LP’s emotional apexes, “Butterfly,” but handle the instrumentation—bass, guitar, piano, synths—everywhere else.

The healing power of gospel is on the record, and so is the precise syncopation of players like Houston drummer Chris Dave. The ethereal, experimental spirit of albums like Tortoise’s 1998 studio masterpiece TNT shows up, too. Interwoven into it all are sampled sounds, field recordings and texture that simply feels human and fluid in the most essential way.

In a world that can be chaotic, These Days says so much about trying to be present—without a single lyric in sight.

“I think we’re just kind of searching for what is authentic to us as writers and creatives and kind of leading with that,” DePergola said.

“There’s so much to be said,” Lynn added, hinting at how badly Katara is itching to keep collaborating with others and move into its next phase of creation.

Wherever that is, DePergola and Lynn’s friendship, and commitment to each other will be at the heart as they grow and evolve.

“It took time for us to build that relationship,” Lynn said, opening the door for his bandmate to reflect on how far they’ve come.

They’ve both experienced breakups—musical and romantic—she noted. Recently, DePergola has wrestled with the passing of Tampa artist Wendy Babcox, who she worked with for the Noisy Womxn project at Cunsthaus in Seminole Heights. Babcox, who passed in March, had invited DePergola to teach, but the experience was more than that.

“She was such a light in my life,” Depergola said about the woman who first brought her into a place where she could play drums without any kind of male influence. “She brought me back to the feeling of why I started playing drums as a little girl.”

The depth of the friendship helped both DePergola and Lynn process their individual pain and transformation.

“We really kind of leaned on each other in a way that I think that we both kind of needed,” DePergola added. “And I felt like we don’t have to talk about it because I know that you feel me, I know that you get me, and know that you’re here for me.”

Onstage this Friday for the release show, Katara will have company: Sebastian Siaca of the band Miroux on bass, Actual Bank Robbers’ Anthony Santaniello on guitar. Pat Hernly—DePergola’s former instructor at St. Pete College, and a member of Hip Abduction—will also join in along with songwriter-vocalist Guianna, and saxophonist Chooty B (Bredal).

But at the center of it all will be the special thing that DePergola and Lynn have created.

“It always just felt good to play music together at the end of the day. Like, more than anybody I can think of, and I don’t know why,” Lynn said. “It’s just fun.”

Tickets to see Katara play Crowbar in Ybor City on Friday, April 26 are still available and start at $15.
UPDATED 04/25/24 12:27 a.m. Updated the spelling of Sebastian's last name to "Siaca"
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