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Alysia’s Kraft’s sophomore EP, 'Electric Blooms' is a hard-hitting, hook-laden batch of indie rock that balances warmth, quirk, play, and catharsis in equal parts. Kraft’s long been a supernova and sweetheart of the Northern Colorado music scene, a unique front-person who is punk-kinetic, pop-accessible, and a genuine conductor of collective energy. On “Electric Blooms,” the rare velocity of Alysia Kraft can be felt.
“As a real extrovert, the return to ‘life’ after so much isolation brought on a million internal combustions. A crushing breakup, a gigantic new love, enough sobriety and self-growth that a few pre-pandemic paradigms had become very uncomfortable fits. This album is overwhelm and overjoy taking turns driving a getaway car — and myself, crazed in the backseat, knowing I need the ride.”
Kraft and drummer/co-producer/energy-twin Shane Zweygardt took turns producing and engineering the album in the dimly lit after-hours of The Music District - a space in which they both worked day jobs that involved supporting other local musicians through access to high quality gear and programming.
“I was writing constantly and eager to develop more sustainable ways to make records. When we started, we didn’t know if we were going for demos or finished songs…but we were bottling these songs in the time they were being lived and felt, experimenting and trusting instinct. It helps to have Grammy-nominated mixing engineers (Andrew Berlin and Jason Livermore) finishing your work.”
Kraft’s solo debut First Light (sonaBLAST!, June 2022) charted third on Colorado radio in 2022 (alongside giants The Lumineers and Nathaniel Raitliff), won Best Original Song from the LA International Independent Film Festival, and earned Kraft one of nine inaugural Sonic Guild Grants in Colorado. The Colorado Playlist nominated First Light for a 2022 best album, and Kraft was named a NIVA Artist to Watch in 2023 and a nominee for the Colorado Sound Awards Outstanding Live Performer in 2023. Kraft built devoted followings for prior projects Whippoorwill and The Patti Fiasco and has shared stages with icons ranging from Bon Jovi, to Blondie, to Bonnie Raitt, to Big Thief. Kraft is a rare songwriter who can hush a crowd with an intimate solo set or bring fervor to a packed stadium. While First Light leaned harder into the folk and pop edges of indie rock, Electric Blooms packs a fistful of punch.
The title track launches listeners through a surrealistic energy-scape of new connection and pollination with flirtatious and coy wordplay; “Offering” lands somewhere between the 90’s grunge-dreaminess of the Cranberries and the pop-astute indie rock of Snail Mail and Soccer Mommy, kicking down doors in the opening bars before surrendering into the light of a new, gigantic love; “Killer Bees” buzzes with the memory of love that packs a sting; and “Little Fire,” a song Kraft penned as “the simplest and most loving life advice” she could condense for her four-year-old niece, smolders steadily until a climax of sonic fireworks and the mantra “follow your heart, keep it wild, build your own little fire” takes willing listeners to the side of transformation. The album’s most virtuosic emotionality comes from “3 Empty Chambers” an homage to the determined but devastated exodus from a ten-year-relationship that accelerates and intensifies until the “break” that Kraft has been begging for lyrically cracks the song open on itself. Contemporaries like Bully, Broncho, Snail Mail & Waxahatchee exist alongside classic references to the Breeders, Cranberries and the Cars.
Co-produced and co-engineered by Kraft and Zweygardt and featuring contributions from Oliver Mueller (Slow Caves), Jesse Bates (Quiet Life) and Hayden Farr (The Burroughs, Trash Cat), the album was mixed and mastered by Grammy-nominated engineer Andrew Berlin and Jason Livermore at the legendary Blasting Room Studio in Fort Collins, CO.
