
Premiere: Cat Ridgeway Shares Single and Video for “Sprinter”
New Album, Sprinter, To Be Released March 28, 2025
Jan 15, 2025 Photography by Gabe Lugo
Today, Under the Radar is exclusively premiering the single “Sprinter” by Orlando’s Cat Ridgeway. The single will be available via streaming services beginning January 17. “Sprinter” is the second track to be shared from Ridgeway’s upcoming same-titled album, Sprinter, to be released on March 28 via Sony’s The Orchard distribution platform. The title track follows the punk-infused single “Epilogue,” released last October, while Sprinter follows Ridgeway’s earlier self-released albums Nice to Meet You and Passenger Seat.
Ridgeway, a veteran live performer, has shared bills with the likes of Lucy Dacus, Sylvan Esso, and Arcade Fire. Though her prior work has leaned heavily to Americana/Singer-songwriter influences (particularly her debut), on Sprinter Ridgeway gives in to her love of indie and alternative rock. As is her hallmark, Ridgeway’s vocals are front and center, but the album also brings forth her most adventurous compositions to date. “Sprinter” showcases this well with impeccably crisp Motown-esque vocals over a building rhythm. A minute in the track morphs with a massive guitar riff that see-saws back and forth with spring-loaded choruses, a’la The Pixies, until a gentler close.
But in spite of the single’s punchy presentation, “Sprinter” tells a more downcast story with repeated lyrical references to ignoring the proverbial “check engine” light any car owner knows too well. “When I was studying abroad in college, I had a roommate that was always on the go. Always down to go out, hit up a party, whatever,” Ridgeway says via Zoom from her Orlando home studio. “A few years later I saw a post on social media that she had passed away. And I found out that she had taken her own life. I was just beyond shocked because I never would have thought she was struggling like that. And I [just started thinking], “Man, how did all of us miss that? Everybody.”
Drawing parallels to her own “always behind, always on the go” place she often finds herself in life, Ridgeway wrote the song with both her friend and herself in mind. “I’m always running late and I’m always behind the curve on a lot of things. So I just started seeing this poetic marriage of a person who was always late, but the one thing that gets rushed is living your life. And mental health always goes out the window. The “check engine” light kind of became a motif to say, “Hey, this is happening,” but that light [in real life] almost becomes a joke of how far can I push this [before getting it fixed],” Ridgeway explains. Though much of the album touches on similar themes of loss and our ephemeral place in the arc of the universe, “Sprinter” is the song that tackles the topic head on.
One key to Ridgeway’s shift in sound was getting out of her personal geography and comfort zone in terms of who she recorded with. Mike Savino (aka Tall Tall Trees) produced the album. “I ended up in Athens, Georgia, two New Year’s Eves ago to see Kishi Bashi play at the 40 Watt Club. We got there in time for the opener and Mike [Savino] gets up on stage with hair twice as long as mine and a beard just as long and he pulls out this banjo with lights inside. He starts doing all this crazy looping shit with the banjo — hitting it with a mallet, using a fiddle bow, using a POG pedal. I was just standing there in the crowd and I can’t explain it any other way than by saying it was spiritual. I had never heard of him before, but I just knew that he must be a producer and knew he had to work on my new album,” Ridgeway says.
Not shy about putting herself out there, Ridgeway reached out to Savino who fortuitously had just finished building out his GalleyTapes studio in Asheville. Ridgeway made several trips to Asheville to record and stayed on site for up to ten days at a time. “I went up and worked with Mike and it was the most beautiful creative partnership I have ever experienced in a recording setting. As Mike puts it, “He loves to chase rabbits down holes.” So, I’ve never gotten to work on the writing process as I’m recording and also editing as you go along,” she says. Savino also brought in musicians from his own circle to contribute to the album as well. Josiah Wolf (WHY?) plays drums and Adam Schatz (Sylvan Esso, Japanese Breakfast, Wye Oak) contributes horns.
The “Sprinter” title not only refers to the blur of living life, but also to her late friend’s passion for running and fitness. This carries over to the theme of the song’s video. The montage, co-directed by Ridgeway and Zach Herrbach, shifts from shots on the track of a nearby high school, to a life in clear disarray, to Ridgeway and her band furiously playing along (sometimes in a mechanically challenged touring van to take the references further). The video is a rollicking feel good affair, but closes on a shot of empty bleachers which forces a call back to the themes of the song.
Ridgeway has played the song in a live setting already and mentioned to the audience that she wished her friend had reached out to someone during her last days. “A friend of mine came up to me after the show and told me he really appreciated me telling that story. But he told me that the thing is that a lot of times when you’re in that headspace you don’t have the capacity to reach out. All you’re hoping for is someone to reach in. [That was so eye-opening and] beautiful to me that it became the final puzzle piece of the song,” Ridgeway says.
Sprinter Track List:
1. Sprinter
2. Cursive
3. Blessed Be the Beast
4. Look Ma, No Plans!
5. Restless Leg Syndrome
6. Epilogue
7. What If
8. Go Long (So Long)
9. John’s Lament
10. Get Well Soon
11. Forced Actors
12. Posture

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