DIY is the word for Krista Muir on Between Atoms
On this fifth LP, the artist formerly known as Lederhosen Lucil does it all: singing and playing various instruments (organ, keyboards, ukulele, glockenspiel, memotron, stylophone, bass, drums, etc.), as usual, but also acting as producer, recording engineer and printmaker.
“I’m currently cutting record sleeves out and putting them in flip covers,” says Krista Muir over the phone, before explaining how this project got to be so DIY. “Well, this past year, I decided to go back to school and learn a different trade. I took this digital layout and printing program and, at the same time, I did this piece of music that was commissioned by a Greek painter [Stefanos Rokos]. This song sparked a whole bunch of other songs, even though I was trying to focus only on my studying then. So my lovely creative ADD self started recording this new album, and because some of the people I normally work with were away, I ended up doing a lot more on my own. Eventually, I had these printing projects that I had to do and I thought, ‘Maybe I can tie this in with the record?’ So I ended up silk-screening these pretty fantastic glow-in-the-dark 7-inch record sleeves!”
To raise the money necessary for the mastering, manufacturing and artwork of Between Atoms, Muir reached out to her fans and to music lovers in general via crowdfunding site Kapipal. “I wanted to find a way to get my fans, friends and family to support the project and make it a little more feasible,” remembers Muir. “I put it up [on Kapipal] and I ended up making 129 percent of my goal. It’s really amazing, as an independent artist, to be releasing something without being in debt!”
In return for their donations, which added up to the impressive sum of $2,923.99, contributors were rewarded with records, thank-you postcards and hand-printed tea towels, among other things. Krista even offered to do a private show at the house of whoever would pledge $500 or more. Did anyone take her up on that? “Yeah, I have a fan from Williamsburg who bought the house party package, so we’re going to put on a show this summer at his apartment in New York!”
But however inspiring the story of the making of Between Atoms may be, what matters most is that it’s a wonderful album, overflowing with catchy melodies, rich instrumentations and intriguing lyrics. Muir seems to have perfected a way to make music that’s light and dark, hopeful and melancholy, playful and heavy, often all at the same time.
“I really love contrast and irony, people being drawn in by a really upbeat song and then, when they actually pay attention to the lyrics, they see it at a different level,” says Krista Muir. “This song Tired Angels for instance, it’s not meant to be a downer, but it deals with death and mortality. Some of the lyrics I wrote when I was jogging one summer. This passage, ‘I followed death into the grove,’ is from this moment when I realized that there were all these bees everywhere, which I’m allergic to. So the words literally came into my head that I was following death into the woods… I made it through without having an attack or anything, but it was just this moment of like, whoa, death is everywhere and nowhere and… Yeah, I’m getting deep!”
Krista Muir
w/ Jesse Dangerously
At Divan Orange
May 11
