Coming out of the tail end of the anti-folk scene epitomized by The Moldy Peaches in the early 2000s, Frankie Cosmos is the indie pop project of Greta Kline.
Kline is known mostly through social media realms as being a low-key and lo-fi artist with whispery, gentle vocals mixed with melodic rock guitar strains.
Her earlier releases were primarily released on bandcamp.com as independent and carefree albums and were often released monthly. Her ability to compose a song like it were a conversation with your best friend who loves the movie “Juno” — just a little too much is staggeringly hipster but in the good sense.
Her latest release, “Next Thing,” is her first studio release, and it shows the singer-songwriter in a more refined light than her earlier Internet release days.
Her lyrics are homely, and they depict scenes such as Kline telling some bookish boy how she feels, like a musical diary. One of the best songs on the album, “Fool,” describes her foolish feelings of falling for someone who maybe isn’t as interested as she is.
“You make me look like a fool waiting for you,” she sings in the soft melancholy swoon before the beat drops into a random dance break.
Her music does these sorts of breaks, time changes and dance sections that mash up into songs with so much musical variance but in the span of less than three minutes.
“I thought we could eat bread,” she sings. “I thought we could talk on darker days with our boots kicked off.” How quaint is that?
“Embody” is a sort of meditation on a list of friends and how they “embody all the grace and lightness,” which sounds like a kind gesture, but her beautifully stifled and simple voice makes it seem like a mourning more than anything.
“Everybody understands me, but I wish nobody understood me,” she sings. “So, you’d be the one who did.”
Other songs to consider on this release are “Sinister” and “On the Lips,” which both follow the theme the album goes with of friendship and blushing crushes.
“Next Thing” is a great soundtrack for any day where you feel like driving for no reason or spending time drinking cheap wine with good friends.
