Kristina Stapelfeld has fallen in love with Boston.
“It smells way nicer here than NYC,” she says. But our city has shaped her writing, her sound, her performance– even her name. “The moniker ‘Living In Polaroids’ for me was Brooklyn, being a teenager, smoking pot in the back of CBGB’s. I took a few years off, moved to Boston and my sound naturally matured a little,” she tells me.
Of course, a change of sound due to a shake-up in surroundings is normal for any musical group, but as her material developed she decided the older identity didn’t fit. “I feel like playing under a moniker is a way to create a persona, kind of like Father John Misty (who I really dig right now),” Stapelfeld explained, “but I feel like the music on this record is a very honest interpretation of myself so I shouldn’t bother with a pseudonym.”
Her new sound has a dreamy warmth reminiscent of a Pixar short: there’s a feeling of familiarity, or perhaps, a sense of nostalgia.
The juxtapositions employed by Stapelfeld’s latest track, “Taking Chances,” are definitely the track’s strengths: the clarity of her vocals come through, contrasting the fuzzy-sounding instrumentals. About a minute in an electric guitar solo makes a lazy entrance, a contradiction to the assertive chorus “So, I’ll take my chances.”
Listen to “Taking Chances” below, or hear her other releases on Soundcloud– she’ll be releasing tracks leading up to her full-length album.