Kim Krans. Photo via publicist.
Discover Blogly is The FADER’s curated roundup of our favorite new music discoveries.
Before Kim Krans landed on The New York Times bestseller list with her tarot deck The Wild Unknown, the visual artist, spiritual teacher, and author was a musician creating fuzzy psychedelic folk and nostalgic garage rock in bands like Love As Laughter and Family Band. But after bouncing around the Pacific Northwest indie-folk scene, there came a time when she decided to trade in the chaos of tour life for the quiet solace of spirituality; meditation became her calling for a decade as she learned Kundalini and Classical Hatha yoga and studied under shamans from Europe, India, and Africa.
In February, the Los Angeles-based artist returned with her magical solo debut, MIRRORMIRROR. An otherworldly dark pop record recorded with My Morning Jacket’s Kevin Ratterman, MIRRORMIRROR combines languid melodies, and hypnosis-inducing rhythmic loops, with striking textures and soothing background harmonies through the layering of Krans’ voice, reciting protective chants and mantras.
Reminiscent of a collaboration between Enya, Molly Nilsson, and a deck of oracle cards, every song feels like it’s plucked from another plane of existence. “Spinning Sun” is lush goth pop while “Yes” is imbued with a misty balladry. On “Dead Stars,” Krans cloaks her balladry in fog before achieving a transcendent beauty on “Golden Tears.” The album’s standout is the opener, “Sister,” a blissful psychedelic gem that’s hypnotic to the point where you almost don’t realize Krans is gently rehearsing divine archetypes and mystic symbolism, alongside the Akal Mahakal, a protective manta that’s meant to assuage fear of the finite and definitive endings.
In less competent hands, the esoteric lyricism and references to planets, mysticism, and yogic chants would be a recipe for an off-puttingly “woo woo” New Age project powered by the trendiness of spirituality. But MIRRORMIRROR’s has a sincerity and a magnetism to carry you away from the stressors of everyday life and put them in a broader, even cosmic, context.
After all, you can’t ignore how many of these spoken elements — the calm chanting, the hushed humming, the murmured mantras — contribute to the underlying rhythmic thrum that makes MIRRORMIRROR so bewitching. Because the core of Krans’ record isn’t as eerie or enigmatic as it may seem: It’s simply a meditation on letting go, where each song acts as its own pensive prayer.
