The Baltimore musician Katrina Ford is one of the most unsung wailers in recent indie rock history. Ford’s towering presence has been out front in bands like Celebration, Mt. Royal, and Love Life, and she’s sung on songs like TV On The Radio’s “Staring At The Sun” and Future Islands’ “In The Fall.” Ford released a self-titled solo EP, and now she’s back with a new song called “Dundalk Dungeon.”

If you know anything about Baltimore, then the phrase “Dundalk Dungeon” should immediately evoke a whole lot of things. Katrina Ford wrote her song before this year’s Key Bridge collapse, which killed six workers, and it’s a shimmering piece of ’80s-style art-pop. Here’s what she says about it:

This song was inspired by the view of the Harbor from 395. It was a clear day, and seeing at the time the Key Bridge and Dundalk Terminal. I feel like this song has an energetic yet sleepy feeling.

We wrote this song in July 2023. Tragically on March 26th 2024, six construction workers were killed when a container ship struck the Key Bridge, and it collapsed. This is lighthearted, though, inspired by the beauty and the grime of Baltimore. In “Dundalk Dungeon,” the Baltimore harbor’s geography is personified as a gambler in an illegal establishment, a secret bar known as The Dungeon. Now its meaning is more nuanced with the loss.

Check out “Dundalk Dungeon” below.