Interview: Kississippi Talks Glittery New Single and Triple Crown Signing
The track is called âAround Your Room,â but from the twitterpated lyrics (âThrow your heart at me / Iâm a sucker for youâ) to the glittery candy bomb of a video, itâs clear it resides in the space inside Zoe Reynoldsâ head. With her first new single as Kississippi (referred to affectionately as âKissyâ by fans and Reynolds too) since she self-released gauzy, emo-tinged Sunset Blush in 2018, Reynolds has affirmed her plunge deeper into pop. Kississippi stepped out of a blush-tinged, guitar-driven world and into an electronic landscape steeped in hot pink.Â
Releasing âAround Your Roomâ on October 8, Reynolds anxiously anticipated the reaction from those who have been around since her first EP, We Have No Future, Weâre All Doomed, with its minor riffs and languid vocals. âIâve been working on this stuff for so long I kind of forgot that people donât know that thatâs what my music sounds like now,â Reynolds, who co-wrote the song with Sarah Tudzin of Illuminati Hotties, says. But a glittery pop aesthetic was always sprinkled throughout Reynoldsâ music and performancesâsometimes literally, like the doughnut sprinkles she once affixed to her frosting-pink guitar. Even the shift from We Have No Future to Sunset Blush saw Reynolds inching closer to dream pop, writing not the music she felt like was expected of her given the scene she was part of but the secret songs that had always resided within her. Inspired by female-fronted pop music from Britney to Beach House, it was just a matter of time until Reynolds broke the mold.Â
âIâve been thinking about it recently, and itâs the first time that Iâve really come to terms with the fact that I was holding myself back a little bit,â Reynolds says. âI feel like I finally found my voice on this shit.â Itâs not just on the track itself. Reynolds, a visual artist, designs most Kississippi merch herself. When she writes songs, she doesnât just hear the notes, but she envisions them in swaths of colors and textures. If you havenât watched the âAround Your Roomâ video yet, you arenât getting the full Kissy experience.
âVisuals and music connect in a major way for me; my brain just only works artistically,â Reynolds says. Working with a team including Josh Coll, who directed the video, to Kay Dargen, who did the album art, her vision was brought to life. âI just had such a good creative team behind every single part of this single,â she says. âI hardly had to explain anythingâ. The image of Reynolds with a pastel-colored, high-strapped electric guitar became so familiar as she toured to promote Sunset Blush that itâs somewhat shocking she hardly picked up a guitar writing âAround Your Roomâ and the rest of the songs that will comprise her as-yet-unannounced second LP (and her first since signing to Triple Crown Records this fall). âItâs a big change, but itâs what Iâve been wanting to do forever,â Reynolds, who wrote âAround Your Roomâ in spring 2019 while on tour with Laura Stevenson, says. Using the digital audio workstation Reason to write opened up a lot of different paths to electronic music for her.
The Taylor Swift comparisons have come in a steady stream, but Reynolds doesnât mind a bit. Personally, thatâs âthe highest compliment,â she says. âWhen I heard some of these songs for the first time, I was like, âThese are my 1989 songs.ââ The timing is, if not ironic, notable, given that Swift just changed her own sound dramatically on folklore. But itâs exactly that kind of freedom for female pop musicians Reynolds finds so exhilarating; if she wants, her new album can be a little 1989, a little Melodrama, a little âŚBaby One More Time. Sure, âAround Your Roomâ is a youthful exaltation of infatuation, but not all pop needs to be. And itâs the emo sensibility Kississpi brings from We Have No Future and Sunset Blush that makes her new offering stand out in a landscape of pretty synths and beats.
Being part of the Triple Crown family too will be a big change for Reynolds in her next album cycle, given that she unexpectedly had to self-release Sunset Blush when her former label, SideOneDummy Records, underwent a major restructuring (read: laid off almost its entire staff). Without dwelling too much on details of the past, Reynolds acknowledges that finding a home at Triple Crown, hitting the ground running releasing âAround Your Roomâ and its accompanying video, and discussing release plans for her next LP is all the sweeter given the previous trials.Â
âIâm really grateful for meeting so many people through that label, like [director of marketing] Jamie Coletta, [production and digital director] Christina Johns and Erica Lauren [social media],â Reynolds says. âGetting to meet them through that label was worth all of the strife, in my opinion.â As she shopped her forthcoming record to labels, Reynolds never forgot how supportive Triple Crown founder Fred Feldman had been during her self-release of Sunset Blush, and ultimately, the decision of who to sign with became not a decision at all.
âNow that Iâve ended up with Triple Crown it just feels really right to me,â Reynolds says. âI already have trust for him and have seen how much heâs done for so many friendsâ bands, I donât think I could ask for a better situation.â As for the butterflies she felt before the singleâs release, Reynolds neednât have worried. The song was featured on Apple Musicâs Alt Pop, Indie Pop, and Breaking Alternative playlists, NPR Musicâs New Music Friday playlist (and our own!), and was spotlighted on Billboard.Â
âItâs so much better than I could have even imagined,â Reynolds says of the reception. Before putting it out, aware of the sonal leap, she wondered, Are people gonna be down with this? âAnd then I was like, well, how could they not be down with this if this is the best thing Iâve ever done?â That level of confidence can only stem from the gut feeling that Reynolds is finally making music cut from cloth that is wholly her ownâa prismatic assortment of electric shades and sparkles.
Michelle Bruton |Â @MichelleBruton
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Interview: Kississippi Talks Glittery New Single and Triple Crown Signing was originally published on The Alternative
