Alysia Kraft’s magnetic voice cuts through crisp air in a bittersweet serenade of imperfect love and loss in “Cold Mountain”. The shimmering, indie-folk-pop song paints time and place with a clear brush, sharing mesmerizing vignettes of her homeland. The place Kraft describes is one of an opaque, sometimes harsh beauty. Coming from a small cattle ranch in Wyoming, Kraft’s queer identity was not always welcome with a loving embrace, and this forced them to navigate a complex relationship with their home town where affection towards it was at times unrequited. This sensitive journey has made for a compelling life philosophy however, Kraft making a decision to love fully, despite the obstacles.
If we’re gonna know this mountain / we’re gonna have to see its dark side.
The track comes from Kraft’s solo debut Album, First Light, and the layered acoustic guitars, interwoven only with Kraft’s angelic voice definitely evoke the lavender colors of early morning. In both subject matter and sound, it feels like Kraft sings the track from the dark side of the moon, reflecting on more younger days, the hard times since then and the lessons they’ve learnt. On the halfway mark high pitched synths creep in like icicles – it sounds like these flourishes are another melody, reversed – reflecting Kraft’s own return back through time.
Know I grew up way out here / where the wind blows all day
Got inside my brother like a madness / and took him far away
The track is mixed by Grammy-nominated artist Justin Craig, and whilst that might infer excessive production, the sound artists working on the track (including producer J. Tom Hnatow) all pull back the perfect amount to let Kraft’s classic voice and songwriting glisten.
I can show you where I first felt God / and tell you how I lost it again.
We all have a mosaic of moments, or maybe just one, where our innocence was lost. Kraft offers to walk you back to that place, and take you through the motions of youthful euphoria replaced with a knowing sorrow. The melancholia is not without hope or joy, however, and listening to the track may help you understand your own blended emotions towards the people and places of your past.
We have our ideas, but is “Cold Mountain” a metaphor for something in particular?
My hope is that “Cold Mountain” will take different shapes for everyone. I was writing about the feeling of having to confront something cold and unwelcoming and imposing, knowing that darkness and questioning and exhaustion are inevitable.
You have mentioned navigating your queer identity in Wyoming, and ‘choosing to love within a landscape that didn’t always love back’. Do you explore this in “Cold Mountain”?
I do – in the space of forgiveness. I felt my first sadness for people who deny humanity for others because of their own fear and pain. Prejudice doesn’t originate within, but is continuously blown at and through people by systems that stand to benefit. The second verse is about external forces acting on people in different ways and how much pain it perpetuates for everyone.
You introduce a lot of beautiful paradoxes in your lyrics – feeling God and losing that feeling, bitter love, air turning to cold steel. Do you think it’s wise to process paradoxes or just to sit with them?
I wish I knew what was wise! I have a beautiful friend who is a processor and I tend to be someone who “sits with,” and I think we teach each other a lot. More than anything, I think it’s important to observe… to really observe beauty and listen to pain. They are both more complex songs than they seem and that recognition keeps us out of the dangerous space of always judging life as “good or bad.”
What do you hope people take away from the song?
An invitation to explore what they’re feeling. I hope it’s a song people want to come back to when they are feeling a lot, and just want to be present with the questions they need to feel.
How long have you been performing?
I didn’t start playing guitar until I was 22, but immediately had a rock and roll band and haven’t stopped since. 10 years if you don’t count the last two (which were…. sparse).
What is your favorite time or place to make music?
Absolutely any time there is uncontained joy and inclusion and guitars and smiles being passed amongst friends old and new in a semi-rowdy environment with warm light.
What are you most excited for this year?
To fall in love with playing live all over again and curate newer, weirder experiences around live music. Fingers crossed!
