Photo by Senny Mau

Droning experimental rocker Kathryn Mohr recorded her newest album, Carve, in a rural singlewide in the Mojave Desert, but it wouldn’t be far-fetched to imagine if she had done so in the middle of a blizzard like today across the Northeast either. The Bay Area artist sings of scenery obsolete and blistering, carnivals of evils, and sitting in a dog cage. It all sounds like a long drive with only wicked despair in the passenger seat through a world that looks like it’s been brought to an apocalyptic brink. All of it just makes those negative thinking patterns whirl heavier until they’ve formed their own insurmountable mountain to overcome. “Clinging rung to rung up this ladder chasing / A pinpoint of light from above,” she sings. It’s hard to tell if that’s the moment where she finally catches a glimpse of hope, or just the sight of hope tempting her from an unobtainable far and away distance. Either way, it feels desolate out there in Mohr’s world.

Kathryn Mohr’s Carve will be released April 17th on The Flenser.