As I sat under the stale fluorescent lights of a small local airport in the south of France, waiting my turn to go outside to catch my Flixbus, I was looking for a hug. Something warm, comforting, akin to the feeling of finally having seen my best friend for the first time in a while. I had just spent the most wonderful weekend with her in a city new to both of us, basking in the sun and the sea. Her ride back (to Marseille) left a few hours earlier than mine (to Florence) and I imagined Kate Bollinger’s debut would give me the warmth I seeked in the meandering time I had left in that ugly terminal.
I sat in an uncomfortably padded chair and I played through the pre-downloaded album files on my tin-y phone. It didn’t exactly feel like the embrace I seeked, the project is sonically busy and asks the listener to daydream along with it. The project’s most impressive feat is that it clearly showcases what Bollinger is best at: making songs that are as picturesque as a children’s book.
Songs From A Thousand Frames Of Mind opens with a few seconds of static and welcomes Bollinger’s voice alongside an upbeat melody complete with an inviting bassline. The singer’s “la la la’s” in the chorus carry the song to its closing voice memo—an old-time newscaster asking the listener to “stay with us…” What follows is a confessional mixtape riddled with acoustic guitar, harpsichord and soft percussion. It’s a whimsical listen that often sounds analog and homemade: a few songs were actually recorded direct to tape, sometimes even without headphones. Some of these tracks could have been B-sides off of Clairo’s Charm. Bollinger mixes her usual indie rock, folk and psychedelic into 11 songs that effortlessly weave in her ability to craft a visually vivid album.
The LP strikes me as less impressive than her previous EP, 2022’s Look at it in the Light. The EP quickly summed up what Bollinger is so good at: delivering soft vocals over catchy acoustic guitar melodies, masking it all under her picture-book lyrics. In the album, she’s showing how in control she is of her aesthetic, but it’s a larger, and longer, playground for Bolllinger to try new elements that only sometimes work, like a theatrical part in “I See It Now” (doesn’t) and clean guitar solos scattered through the album (does).
A clear highlight is how in control Bollinger is of her voice. It melts like a lit candle jammed in a wine bottle, slowly and deliberately dripping down the sides and making its way through songs in smooth and imperfectly perfect streams. She sings in a way that physically makes me lean in closer, even if I’m just sitting still with headphones at my desk. She’s got this way of layering her voice that sounds so full, like on the “you’s” of “All This Time,” a song that I chose to read as about platonic love: “I waited all this time for you / Or someone of your kind and I got you / Imagine the delight in finding you.” Those “you’s” came really close to the hug I was seeking, only short of hearing it in a familiar tone.
In other moments, she whisper-sings through more confessional songs. Her delivery is similar to Adrianne Lenker’s in Big Thief’s “Promise is a Pendulum,” a song Lenker recorded straight into voice notes, while her phone rested on her acoustic guitar. The raspy voice memo effect successfully conveys careful lyrics, especially the words between the lines, but in Bollinger’s case, the frequent whisper becomes a little tired, a little weak. When she leans away from the whispering, songs feel warmer and encompassing; less like she’s hiding a truth and more like she’s owning one.
At the center of the album sit “God Interlude,” “Lonely” and “Running,” the sonic thesis of the record. The triptych moves leisurely and is punctuated by Bollinger’s syncopated delivery, each mirroring a self-reflection. On “God Interlude” she struggles with an omnipresent higher power, maybe God or maybe lingering thoughts of a former flame (who can tell the difference anyways?) over an easy swaying rhythm. The piano on “Lonely” is a simple ballad that flirts with her muted vocals, building on itself but never exactly crashing at its peak. It feels like the solace of your favorite blanket on a cold day. Then, on “Running” Bollinger takes a breath and her voice, now fuller and louder, takes center stage with the crunch of acoustic guitar accompanying her. The front half of the song feels like there’s a gulp stuck in the back of your throat from some indulgent dessert, and when it opens up it’s as if it’s coming undone with a sip of tea. All the while she trills, “I can’t keep up, it seems / Even in my dreams.” Listening to it put me right back to when I last saw her live about a year ago, in D.C.’s intimate Atlantis club, on a tour where she debuted a lot of the album’s tracks. It’s easy to remember her singing with her eyes closed behind her blonde bangs, a big Les Paul guitar hiding her smocked dress, swaying.
The soundscapes she crafts in this record easily evoke niche and clear visuals along the lines of Porco Rosso or Over the Garden Wall. And, even better, she’s inviting the listener to imagine what these images should be. It’s like she’s simultaneously teaching a masterclass in visual creative art from the second she opens the album with the words “Another day begins…”
“Postcard From A Cloud” could be the melody coming from a ballerina heart-shaped music box in a surrealist film. “Any Day Now” could easily background a sailboat in a golden sunbathed dreamscape. You do one now. I think Bollinger is trying to show her meticulously decorated world, touring you around it, and then hoping for reciprocity. She’s holding up and reading the illustrated book out loud, waiting for you to follow the words with your fingers.
That’s to say I didn’t exactly feel the comfort of a familiar hug while sitting under cold airport lights. I think it demanded a little too much when the album asked, almost begged, me to build a whimsical world with my own self-reflections. Big ask for someone running on no sleep and about to board a cheap bus. Maybe I thought Kate would be able to sing me a lullaby. Instead, she delivered an album that expands beyond the sonic and into the visual, something I found was a great listen under a partly-cloudy sky in a small park. In the moments where the sun came out from behind the clouds and warmly lit my chosen picnic table that afternoon, I imagined sitting at it across from my best friend, the sun lighting up her deep blue eyes.
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