Kississippi - Mood Ring (2021)

The night before an L.A. recording session, Kississippis Zoe Reynolds spotted a flashy billboard ad for an auto repair shop; Get In Tune, it read, an imperative that felt like a call to connect and a call to get better. It took her mind to Bruce Springsteens iconic garage-set video for Im On Fire, and almost immediately a new song began to take hold. With bubbly synth pads, atmospheric guitar swells, stacked harmonies and drop-out-ramp up drum beats, Were So In Tune'' captures the synchronous excitement of new relationship energy in vibrant waves of sound, crashing and receding like an uncontainable impulse. A couple people have commented on how its NOT in tune, Reynolds jokingly remarks, citing the Lorde-ian, shout-along gang vocals behind the chorus. But it doesnt have to be; I wasnt in tune with that person, either. The song serves as the bar-raising first song on Mood Ring, Reynolds second full length as Kississippi and first for Triple Crown Records. Like its opening track, the album is full of her trademark talent at channeling deadpan emotional observation into poignant musical metaphors. Kississippi comfortably filters pop grandeur, emos deliberate rawness, and Nashvilles studio largeness through a lens of punk camaraderie. Just like the albums title suggests, Reynolds writes through a spectrum of shifting emotions: elation blending into insecurity and back around into gorgeous awe. Originally a home recorded solo project for Reynolds to explore her folk songwriting on acoustic guitar, Kississippi cut its teeth touring on Fest-friendly pop punk, and the project solidified its emo cred supporting third wave genre progenitors Dashboard Confessional. But like her earliest songwriting heroes Cat Power and Liz Phair (who Reynolds describes as vulnerable and weird girl rock stars, which was something I saw in myself), Kississippi songs transcend genre, and lend themselves just as well to slick arena-ready production as they do rock instrumentation. After working closely with Philadelphia studio mainstay and mentor Kyle Pulley on 2018 debut Sunset Blush, Reynolds felt encouraged to explore the sonic possibilities in electronic-focused pop, taking inspiration from favorite bands like Beach House, CHVRCHES and Purity Ring. She learned to produce with studio software Reason, delving deep into its fun synth sounds and weird tools to develop the lushly-layered demos that would inform Mood Ring.