About
We all need a lighthouse when we can’t see the shoreline. For songmaker Cat Terrones, songs are beacons to guide us through life’s fog and haze. Her forthcoming album, Shelter in Our Beauty, is a series of signal fires: reminders to trust when you don’t feel hope, to keep walking even if you can’t see where you’re going. Anchored by twin guitars and rustic harmonies, the music sounds more rural than Laurel Canyon but more expansive than an Appalachian valley. There are songs about personal and collective upheaval, like “Give Back Rain,” a lament about sea-level rise penned just before the 100-year flood in Lyons, Colorado. Terrones’ artful and ardent lyrics are populated by the natural world — thunderous oak trees, the smoky scent of creosote in the desert, the wildflower blooms in springtime. Inspired by her Welsh and Irish heritage, Terrones sees these earthly delights not as mere scenery but as animate characters that shape her stories and her songs.
Terrones was born in San Pedro, a rocky peninsula at the southernmost tip of Los Angeles. She grew up a block from the ocean where she swam the kelp forests, watched whales from the cliff edge and searched for sea anemones in the tide pools. Terrones was immersed in her family’s Celtic culture, singing in choirs and listening to the three-row harp. Hearing Welsh was like pressing her ear up to a seashell: she could hear the sounds, stories and natural wonder of her ancestral land. She learned that the earth was home to everyday magic — like breathing in the air around her and it coming out again as music. Terrones was harmonizing by age 5 and playing guitar by age 15. She started writing songs soon after and says, “a door to a secret passage unlocked, a keyhole to endless creativity.”
Shelter In Our Beauty, Terrones’ sophomore album, was produced by Dave Hidek and features her longtime collaborator Ben Shannon who plays guitar, sings harmony and co-wrote several songs. It’s full of myth, mystery and magic. The title track reimagines the English ballad “Reynardine” as an American folk song with the harmonic understory of an Appalachian forest. It recounts the tale of a shapeshifting werefox who magnetizes beautiful women and then steals them away to his castle. “Wildflower” is a siren song about living in balance with the earth and learning to heal from heartbreak with the help of the Mariposa Lily. “Carry You” is a lament and circle song to remind us of those we’ve lost. There are songs about travelling the Sonoma countryside, navigating the tumult of relationships and feeling restored by new love.
Terrones comes from a family of artists: her great-grandmother was a painter and organist, her grandfather a cowboy poet and her step-mom a singer of art songs. “I feel a kind of strength from knowing that lineage is a part of me,” says Terrones. “I was always surrounded by good artistic nourishment.” Audiences, too, can feel her passion and purpose. Terrones was a finalist at Rocky Mountain Folks Festival Singer-Songwriter Competition, LEAF New Song Contest and Kerrville New Folk Competition. She has released two EPs, Bright and Far Away (2024) and Forget Me Not (2014). She’s played countless coffeehouses and performed at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Rocky Mountain Folks Festival and showcased at Folk Alliance.
