Since emerging with her 2019 debut EP, Spectrum, Kristen Merritt’s storytelling has been the clear driving force at the heart of her craft. Inspired by some of the greats, like Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu, to contemporaries, Merritt creates music with honesty, vulnerability, and raw emotion.
Merritts’s voice soars with dynamic range and stellar control on the new single “Breathe” (below) as she situates herself in a cocoon of walking bass lines and revealing guitar color. The powerhouse singer delivers a finely tuned soulful number that strikes a fine balance between singer-songwriter folk and hip-hop.
Merritt further shares: “Breathe starts off with all of the ick – the very honest line of me waking up to the realization that I have caused a lot of my own suffering – through embracing the negative thought spiral. But as much as I have previously chosen in some ways to stay untrusting in myself and my abilities, I can also choose to find the good in the situation, keep persevering, remind myself of what’s going right. So this song narrates the awakening to that truth – that power to choose that we all possess. One deep breath at a time.”
