Many psychologists and scholars of the Jungian variety hold fairy tales as vital sources in any attempt to understand the human mind and spirit. The fantastical simplicity of such stories, they argue, provides more than an entertaining adventure or morality fable. It opens a window on to the human psyche, offering “the purest and simplest expression of the collective unconscious psychic process,” as Marie-Louise von Franz wrote in her work The Interpretation of Fairy Tales. “Representing the archetypes in their simplest, barest and most concise form.” That is, fairy tales represent art in its most noble guise. An attempt to distil the vast intricacies of the human condition into shapes we can recognise and understand. As von Franz continues:
I have come to the conclusion that all fairy tales endeavour to describe one and the same psychic fact, but a fact so complex and far-reaching and so difficult for us to realize in all its different aspects that hundreds of tales and thousands of repetitions with a musician’s variation are needed until this unknown fact is delivered into consciousness; and even then the theme is not exhausted. This unknown fact is what Jung calls the Self, which is the psychic reality of the collective unconscious […] Every archetype is in its essence only one aspect of the collective unconscious as well as always representing also the whole collective unconscious.
Kramies has long been dialled into such ideas. Across a range of releases, the Dutch-American songwriter has nurtured a distinctive style of folkloric music. A combination of folk, rock and dream pop which conjures its own fantastical worlds. Places both haunting and romantic, separate from reality but on some level echoing its deeper truths. And if, as per von Franz, these truths are complex and difficult and far-reaching, then it stands to reason Kramies will continue to build these worlds, each time circling a little closer to that unknown fact—the Self.
Released by Hidden Shoal, the new self-titled album represents the closest Kramies has come to communicating this Self. A record as committed to world-building and atmosphere as ever, but also loaded with personal details too. What feels like the culmination of a career to date. Where everything is consolidated and offered in its most fully realised form. Life in all its surreal wonder and visceral reality. Kramies, told as truthfully as possible, whatever form that truth takes.
Kramies was kind enough to answer some questions about the record, so read on for a deeper dive into into its themes and inspirations, the balance between myth and reality, and how its existence was predicted in a palm reading he received many years ago.
I think the title of the record is a good place to start. You’ve put out plenty of music in the past, so what is it about this collection that made you choose a self-titled release?
In the past I’ve written these type of dark & dreamy folklore EPs and whimsical songs. Stories that came to me as the seasons changed. Over the years those releases gained me a lot of press and recognition, but I felt like I was slowly growing through those songs and stories. I’ve been doing this for a long time and trying to really understand my craft and where it comes from. It seems I have re-created or brought back a genre of my own around this type of dark storytelling and I’ve become very comfortable sitting with that and creating. Yet, for the first time I found I was writing more personal and drawing into my own dark stories. There was a magical collision between this folklore that I’ve been creating and my own history. It was also the first time I wasn’t concerned with the outcome; I just wrote and was sort of pushed into taking time. It felt like there was no appropriate title for this constellation of songs… Also – true story, a long time ago an old lady who practiced witchcraft was reading my palm and told me that I would have a body of work titled by my first name only.
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There was a decidedly otherworldly tone to many of your previous releases. Something mythic which challenged the line between real and fantasy. Would you say Kramies continues in this vein? Where does the needle fall on the real-fantasy spectrum, if any significant distinction should be made?
Well, Kramies definitely does fall into that vein, but it has more truth and clarity. I can never get too far away from the otherworldly and mystical sound. That’s what flows to me organically and out of nowhere like wind through the woods. It’s just on this album I was doing exactly what came to me and not trying to overly create something. I’ve become very comfortable being my strange artistic self, I’ve come to terms that I’m a sort of Willy Wonka meets Madhatter creative being with a crazy laugh and a unique life story that’s all my own. I think that finally started leaking through into this album. Plus, I do think having multiple producers really help make this a kaleidoscope of sorts. I think this time it’s a 74% mythic and 37% real life which much more than before (that equals 111% and I don’t know how I came up with those numbers, but I like it).
Playing into this are themes of ghosts and memory too. You’ve described how ‘Hotel in LA’ mirrors a period of your life where “there was a beautiful blur between the lines of what was real and what was nostalgia in the making.” Could you expand a little on this relationship between the past and present, and the importance of memory more generally across the album?
In my past I was a drug addict and many times close to death. For many years I stumbled in constant circles, exhausting cycles, and hid from realties. Yet life always gifted me with amazing adventures and special moments which has created a sort of beauty amongst the unpleasant for me. This tends to stir my witchy cauldron of creative nostalgia in a pretty more beautiful way. Yet because of the addiction my memories are a bit upside down until I find a moment written on paper, recollections in boxes, or an old friend comes to a show and reminds me of funny past tales.. I think I took all those past clues, life puzzles and current tapestries and melted it into this album. I just want to quickly say that you ask wonderful questions, I’ve done quite a few of these over the years and its rather lovely to swim deeper and try remembering things.
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On a related subject, I’m interested in the sources of inspiration which directly seed your songs. I’ve read ‘Hotel in LA’ was inspired by an old letter? How did such an object compliment your exploration of the memory?
What’s crazy is since the days of my sobriety, I’ve moved to fourteen apartments in seventeen years. I’ve kept a lot of boxes filled with music clippings, memories, photos, letters etc. I’ve moved those boxes 100 times and never opened them; I just keep adding to it all. Well just over recent times I decided to open some of the older boxes to find many beautiful and personal time capsules. I believe it was all just proper timing, I could have opened these boxes anytime over the last seventeen years, but it was something magical that finally pushed me to look. There were so many letters from people I once loved or people who were inspired by my music and all sorts of things.
You know for a while there after my last EP in 2018 I was drained creatively. I live a very artistic life and I make a living off of it which can really take a toll on your energy. It took opening these boxes at the right moment and seeing positive memories that might have been created in the darkness of addiction and youth but now seems to light up and spark my memories to create this current album.
Can we talk about inspiration more generally? I definitely get a literary influence to your style? Who/what do you view as central to the shaping of your work, be it in terms of lyricism or sound?
The truth is I always wanted to be a writer. I’m more influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien or The Brothers Grimm then I am by much music. In fact, the first book I ever read as a kid was The Hobbit, it was the first time I remember being able to visualize imagery in my head from the words I was reading. My attention span was always to short to be a writer so song lyrics became my craft. The best part though is last year I wrote the soundtrack to a French book called Legend of the Willow. It was the first adult, fairy tale, pop-up book with a soundtrack. As you read it, you scroll your phone over the pages, and it plays the soundtrack… It’s been so fantastic to do stuff like that because it combines my love of books with what I do.
Quite an array of talent helped bring Kramies to life, from Jason Lytle and Tyler Ramsey to the excellent Allison Lorenzen. Could you talk a little on how the collaborations came about?
Oh well that really has been some sort of magic, I have been really lucky to experience so many brilliant artists come into my life and help me. Some I’ve known for years and some just appeared. It rarely happens for artists this way but for some special reason all these wonderful humans were a part of this. I think there’s seven well known artists on this LP and I have a lot of love and respect I have for each one of these people. I think its what also made this album so different and detailed. Each person who worked on this album has a unique story on how they came into my life, I’ll spare you the long stories but for them all to be on one album is truly magic, and if you don’t believe in magic then that’s your business and I don’t know what you call it but its real.
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This might be like choosing a favourite child, but I’m always interested which specific songs are held most dearly by the artist themselves. Do you have a favourite on the record? And, if so, what’s special about that one?
This is going to sound absolutely mad but my favourite “child” on this album is the cover art that Lady Viktoria created. Each song has such a special moment captured in time for me that it would be so hard to pick one. Yet somehow though when all gathered under the painting of the cover it all makes sense for me.
Kramies is out now via Hidden Shoal and available from Bandcamp.
Artwork by Lady Viktoria, photography by Jerome Sevrette