It’s a long way from Wisconsin to Germany, but such is the path that preceded a notable transformation for Kirstin Edwards. As a young cellist and guitar player, she tapped the vast depths of Lake Michigan as her muse. These days, she attributes her reemergence as Queen Quail to Berlin’s botanical gardens and its zwergwachteln, a tiny bird with a quiet focus and deceptive energy reserves much like her own. Central Europe and the Midwest overlap in a languorous ode to misplaced self on Queen Quail’s Narcissus (Dog In The Garden), an impressive debut that offsets its indie-pop shimmer with a rootsy Americana intimacy.
Here’s the rundown from Edwards.
—Hobart Rowland
1) “Grace”
“My personal favorite on the EP, I think. It’s a moment where I recognize how much agency I have in my relationships with the people I love.”
2) “Last Night”
“This song is filled with little snapshots of memories—in particular, being close to sleep as a child and then hearing my mom receive the phone call that her father had passed away. This is the first song (producer) David (Thornton) and I worked together on, and it came together super-quickly.”
3) “Narcissist”
“I was scared to release this, but I’m proud of how vulnerable I was. It’s one of my favorites to play live. My friend from my hometown, Will Hansen, played pedal steel here, and it really made the track.”
4) “I Met God”
“This song will always remind me that my body is my own—and mine only. I wanted to add sounds of a train in reference to a memory I have of waking up to the sound of a train passing by in the distance on a rainy morning while at summer camp as a child.”
5) “Southside”
“This song feels a lot louder and bigger than I realized I could be, as someone who tends to write quiet, introspective music. The explosion at the end feels like my way of moving forward despite challenging past experiences in life.”
6) “Mud”
“This is the oldest song on the EP and also the last one David and I worked on together … kind of funny to end with the beginning. Despite its heavy content, it feels like a big sigh of relief.”
