How does Kacey Musgraves spend her mornings? “Properly, I’m presently in my kitchen,” she says, showing on our Zoom name bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, dappled daylight on treetops seen by means of the home windows of the ethereal, light-filled room behind her. “I had a Greek yogurt bowl with some berries and honey. And now? Now, I’m speaking to you.”
If a take heed to Musgraves’s new album, Deeper Properly, is something to go by, Musgraves has been in a bucolic, yogurt-and-berries temper these days. (The title monitor begins along with her noting that her Saturn has returned, whereas one other track, titled “Coronary heart of the Woods,” is an ode to her new residence deep in a Tennessee forest.) It’s a return to the earth that feels in some way proper. The 35-year-old nation celebrity, recognized for her sharp-tongued lyrics and progressive values, has spent the previous decade strapped to the rollercoaster of fame: first in Nashville, after which internationally, as her masterful third album, Golden Hour—a wide ranging feat of songwriting and sonic creativeness that toyed with psychedelia and full-fledged pop—noticed her turn into the crossover star she’d at all times needed to be, topping charts and profitable the Grammy for album of the 12 months.
With Deeper Properly, she makes a brand new pivot by getting into the world of people—albeit Musgraves-style. The opening monitor, “Cardinal,” begins with a “California Dreamin’”-esque guitar strum, earlier than cantering right into a ’70s groove that recollects Fleetwood Mac at their prime. She additionally cites the affect of Vashti Bunyan, the English people singer-songwriter who wrote a lot of her best-known music whereas using a horse and cart by means of rural Scotland; whereas the album art work sees her in a fuzzy sweater, clutching a sprig of crimson clover. “I form of had this imaginative and prescient of this pioneer girl placing her hair up after the breakup the final album [Star-Crossed] was all about, and discovering her roots once more,” says Musgraves. “And I like that cottagecore is having a second! It’s an aesthetic I discover quite a lot of consolation in. That is my cozy period,” she provides, laughing. Assume: Golden Hour’s older, wiser sister, who could or will not be into crystals and breathwork and protecting a gratitude journal.
