Kristine Leschper releases a video for “Blue,” a standout from her debut solo album, The Opening, Or Closing of a Door, out now via ANTI-.

Of the track and video Leschper says: “There’s a disconnect between the music and lyrics, probably because the original demo of this song sounded like a medieval funeral dirge. So the words still have an unsettling quality, but the musical backdrop eventually morphed into this sexy disco track; I like the push and pull of that, it feels like the dissonance between adds a complexity to both elements. Sharleen Chidiac is a masterful choreographer, she was the glue that held this piece together. You can see how the professional dancers embody the smooth music, whereas my character is more representative of the uneasiness in the lyrics. Jake Lazovick was incredible to work with as always, the end result grappling with and emphasizing the uncanniness of it all, as if in a dream.”

The at-home recording process gave Leschper freedom to set her personal ethos to music divorced from the pressure of an audience. As she worked on The Opening, Or Closing Of A Door, the constellation of ideas that had guided her personal transformation began to cohere into something communicable through music. “My pleasure lives in the poetics of democracy — in the liberatory words of June Jordan, in the humanitarian performances of Bread and Puppet Theatre. Puppetry, like poetry, is a distillation of complex ideas into absolute essentials. With these songs, I wanted to explore themes of longing, encouragement, connectedness, these things that are both straightforward and complex, ubiquitous and vital. It is the foundation of our personal lives that extends broadly into our political lives. I wondered, what might a love song to my friends look like? What might a love song to myself look like?”

“Lately my work centers on exploring joy in its wildness and complexity, the complicated ways that this joy intersects with an imperfect world,” Leschper says. “Circularity has become a major part of my belief system, the lens through which I watch the world — observing cycles helps me make sense of my universe, both internally and externally. Popular culture loves to tell us stories about the importance of ‘growth’, personal growth, economic growth, what have you. It’s very linear. In work, as in life, I am making a conscious effort to center myself around something antithetical to that, because linear growth just doesn’t exist in nature. If you zoom out far enough, everything is cyclical, everything is in a stage of transition! It becomes impossible to ignore the vast network of systems we inhabit, that we are in relationship with each other at all times.”

Kristine Leschper has also announced a record release show at Philadelphia’s Johnny Brenda’s on April 9th with support from Kassie Krut.

Photo Courtesy: Jon Weary