Merely's “Crazy Heart” is perfect winter music

As the winter wraps its icy hand around us we slowly retreat into the moodier, more atmospheric reaches of our music collection. Where summer is about endless nights and major keys, winter is better suited to darker atmospherics befitting of cold winds and slate-grey skies. Enter Merely, a.k.a classically trained Kristina Florell, and the latest signing to Swedish label YEAR0001 (home to Yung Lean and Viagra Boys among others).

Merely's "Crazy Heart" is a fantastical dream-pop odyssey inspired by a letter she wrote to herself as a child. Underpinned by marching drums, Florell's eerie vocals float delicately on top as the song builds and builds. The accompanying video, premiering above, is similarly atmospheric. Filmed in a Swedish forest, the clip takes you deep into the greenery where something more magical than normal seems to exist.

Speaking to The FADER via email, Merely said: "'Crazy Heart' was the first song from the album that I worked with. It had been a long time since I went into the studio and 'Crazy Heart' made it really clear that I should make a whole new Merely record. The title was made-up when I was, like, thirteen and wrote a fictional story in a letter to my future self. My mom found it in a box in the attic last year and sent it to me. I had written something cute about me being a superstar, that I was on tour and had just released my new single 'Crazy Heart.' I just figured the song I worked with at the moment could be named that, since it’s soundscape play around with fantasies and dreams a lot.”

Talking about the video, she adds: “With inspiration from fairy tales and storytelling, childish imagination and the spiritual experience of fantasies I wanted to create a hazy, playful and beautiful video in the most enchanted place I know: the woods. Visually, this is equivalent to the musical concept of the whole album.”

Merely's new album Hatching The Egg is released on February 7 next year.

Thumbnail image courtesy of Frederik Andersson.