American singer/songwriter and alt-pop activist extraordinaire Kiirstin Marilyn has crafted a wonderful 6-track EP “Kristoffer”, which was released recently on the 10th of November, 2023. Through her music, Kiirstin takes on a captivating and warm musical journey that will speak to the very essence of your soul in this 24-minute-long experience that you listen to.
Opening this EP is “Beyond the Bad”, and for first-timers to Kiirstin’s style, this serves as the perfect introduction to her sound with its blissful soundscape that cultivates an atmosphere that is reminiscent of the fall. This song has many elements that you will find to be signature to Kiirstin's music such as deep and resonant lyrics and expressive vocals that will take you to an emotional crescendo. Transitioning into “Real Life”, you are blasted with an immediate rise in energy and power as Kiirstin has substituted her mostly acoustic instrumentals for potent electric rock ones. This song also serves as the perfect sequel to its predecessor as it carries forward and elevates the raw emotion and energy of the opener and elevates it to new heights. Bringing the energy back down after that kicker of an opening duo, the third track of this album is “Twenty-Five” on which we are introduced to Kiirstins’ meditations on the harshities and realities of life at twenty-five. This song is the most driven by the potency of its emotional core and is my personal favourite if I had to pick one out of this EP. “Train Tracks” transitions us into the second half of this album and brings us more traditional modern pop sounds and themes with its soundscape that is heavily driven by synths. Kiirstin still stays true to her core but this is around the point of the EP where you start to realise how lost in the soundscapes and captivated by the ambience you were during the course of this journey's experience. “To Forgive” is Kiirstin’s first and only collaboration on this album and she comes together with Adam Tilzer to craft a unique and downtempo tune that is sure to be an earworm with its strong hook. Closing out this album is “Older, which is the perfect send-off as it takes us back to the opening with the deep reflective lyrics and a soundscape that is adjacent in its warm and acoustic stylings.
“Kristoffer” is not just an EP filled with catchy tunes but a holistically masterful craft of music as its production is crisp and the structuring of songs is sensible and delivers a real sense of cohesion between tracks with their buttery smooth transitions, while each track preserves its own unique identity within the work. I loved listening to this EP and it's half an hour of your time you ought to not deny yourself. So go give it a listen today and show Kiirstin some love!
Discovered via https://app.musosoup.com #sustainablecurator