Kirsten Ludwig

Although emerging from Calgary, Alberta, Kirsten Ludwig’s sound transcends city boundaries and exists in perpetual transition. For the past 10 years, she has been writing, releasing, producing, and touring.

‘We Get It Now’ (2018), Ludwig's debut album, reached #19 on national college radio charts and secured her a headlining European tour. Alongside Colin Stewart (Dan Mangan, Black Mountain, Sleepy Sun), the haunt-folk album delivers themes of loss, grief, anger, and fleeting optimism with its low-key atmosphere and soaring crescendos; “Ludwig’s ethereal echoes capture the weightless, disoriented feeling of looking out bleary–eyed at an unchanging landscape while on a long drive.” (Paste Magazine)

Kirsten’s forthcoming album, Sunbeam, offers 9 new songs unlike anything Ludwig has previously released, created with Layten Kramer and Colin Stewart. Sunbeam challenges Ludwig’s quietness and embraces the adventurous spirit of an 80s-infused indie synth-rock record.

In the beginning, as Sunbeam began to materialize, Kirsten relocated cross-country mid 2020. Wrestling with incessant chronic pain and homesickness, the album came to a grinding halt; fading into the whir of a distant memory, unknown if it would ever be returned to. Moments from defeat, Ludwig summoned the determination to revive the project. Cut to the other side, Sunbeam is aptly named–fully formed and a return to self.

“Less”, is a shattering wakeup call from a frozen daze; shimmering synths, chanting vocals, and driving drums as the backbone. “It’s an exploration of rewriting patterns, changing directions, and choosing softness,” she says. Opening with filtered drum sweeps, then plunging into cascading fuzzy guitars, “On the Outside” recounts the feeling of being an alien in your own world; the divide between how others choose to see you vs. how you see yourself. Following with its hushed first verse, “Sunbeam” quickly transforms into a psych-rock dream; Ludwig’s vocals reverberating next to an overdriven guitar. Undulating between reality and hypnosis; the friction between a familiar place and the longing for an undiscovered one. 

Sunbeam is an exploration of the space that fills now until forever. While shapeshifting genres throughout the tracklisting, the album is sewn together with the same vulnerability and innerworkings Kirsten draws from; leaving you in a familiar, yet uncharted destination.

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