How does Kacey Musgraves spend her mornings? “Well, I’m currently in my kitchen,” she says, appearing on our Zoom call bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, dappled sunlight on treetops visible through the windows of the airy, light-filled room behind her. “I had a Greek yogurt bowl with some berries and honey. And now? Now, I’m talking to you.”
If a listen to Musgraves’s new album, Deeper Well, is anything to go by, Musgraves has been in a bucolic, yogurt-and-berries mood lately. (The title track begins with her noting that her Saturn has returned, while another song, titled “Heart of the Woods,” is an ode to her new home deep in a Tennessee forest.) It’s a return to the earth that feels somehow right. The 35-year-old country superstar, known for her sharp-tongued lyrics and progressive values, has spent the past decade strapped to the rollercoaster of fame: first in Nashville, and then across the world, as her masterful third album, Golden Hour—a breathtaking feat of songwriting and sonic imagination that toyed with psychedelia and full-fledged pop—saw her become the crossover star she’d always wanted to be, topping charts and winning the Grammy for album of the year.
With Deeper Well, she makes a new pivot by stepping into the world of folk—albeit Musgraves-style. The opening track, “Cardinal,” begins with a “California Dreamin’”-esque guitar strum, before cantering into a ’70s groove that recalls Fleetwood Mac at their prime. She also cites the influence of Vashti Bunyan, the English folk singer-songwriter who wrote much of her best-known music while riding a horse and cart through rural Scotland; while the album artwork sees her in a fuzzy sweater, clutching a sprig of crimson clover. “I sort of had this vision of this pioneer woman putting her hair up after the breakup the last album [Star-Crossed] was all about, and finding her roots again,” says Musgraves. “And I love that cottagecore is having a moment! It’s an aesthetic I find a lot of comfort in. This is my cozy era,” she adds, laughing. Think: Golden Hour’s older, wiser sister, who may or may not be into crystals and breathwork and keeping a gratitude journal.
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