The New York artist’s sophomore EP turns friends’ relationships, Robyn-inspired emotional contradictions, family voices and an increasingly fearless approach to femininity into pop music that refuses to behave itself.

Sometimes the easiest way to tell the truth is to convince yourself you’re talking about somebody else.

That, unexpectedly, is how krissy found her way into WORD VOMIT.

The New York artist’s sophomore EP is filled with attraction, rejection, desire, frustration, vulnerability and the occasionally less-than-presentable thoughts that happen somewhere between all of them. But krissy didn’t initially approach the project intending to expose herself.

Quite the opposite.

“I was really inspired by my friends’ relationships and writing from their point of view,” she explains. “So I felt like I had this freedom to say things I might normally be shy about.”

There was a convenient defense mechanism built into the process.

It’s not me.

If the thought was too forward?

Not her.

If the lyric was too sexual?

Not her.

If something sounded impolite, messy, angry or embarrassingly honest?

Still not her.

Except, of course, it was.

“But then, obviously, it kind of is me.”

And somewhere inside that contradiction, WORD VOMIT became considerably more personal than krissy had anticipated.

“I realized there’s a lot more I want to say when I stop worrying so much about whether it sounds polite.”

Welcome to WORD VOMIT.

The Robyn Blueprint

There is a reason krissy gravitates toward pop music capable of making you dance while quietly ruining your evening.

“She’s the forever blueprint — Robyn.”

It makes perfect sense.

Robyn has spent decades demonstrating that euphoria and devastation aren’t opposites. Sometimes the best place for heartbreak is directly over a kick drum.

krissy is attracted to precisely that contradiction.

“A pop song is never just a pop song.”

Underneath the immediacy, she says, there’s something else happening.

“Some yearning, some annoyance, some sadness underneath it — just revealing enough while still letting you move your body.”

It’s a philosophy embedded throughout WORD VOMIT.

“SOLO” slowly blossoms into dance music.

“ICK!” turns rejection into something almost affectionate.

“FRICTION TAPE” transforms desire into electro-pop confidence.

“BADMAN” refuses to stay still long enough to comfortably categorize.

Even the project’s emotional excavation doesn’t require abandoning movement.

For krissy, those contradictions also feel distinctly New York.

“You can be on the subway on your way to work, crying, and no one even blinks an eye!”

It’s funny because it’s true.

But it’s also an oddly useful philosophy of pop music.

“You’re allowed to exist in more than one emotion at once.”

Don’t Get Comfortable

“BADMAN” might be the clearest example of how unwilling krissy is to choose one sonic identity.

The track begins somewhere distorted and nostalgic before slipping into funk-house and eventually colliding with aggressive alt-rock guitars.

This isn’t necessarily krissy deliberately trying to disorient her audience.

She’s simply following her own attention span.

“I love so many different genres, and honestly, I want to make something in practically all of them.”

She admits there’s something slightly selfish about the philosophy.

“I’m kind of selfishly just making my favorite sound.”

But perhaps that’s exactly what an independent artist should be doing.

WORD VOMIT, or WV as she calls it, gives her a foundation broad enough to keep moving.

“The sounds are exploratory enough that I can branch off and follow whatever I’m interested in.”

And yes, she recognizes herself in that refusal to settle.

“I don’t really like feeling boxed into one thing.”

Sounds That Already Remember Something

For all its contemporary dance production, WORD VOMIT repeatedly reaches backward.

Vintage textures.

Older sonic references.

Patsy Cline.

Sounds carrying histories that existed long before krissy placed them inside her own.

That’s deliberate.

“I think it’s important for me, as a songwriter, to stay connected to what initially made me fall in love with music.”

Nostalgia gives her a useful starting point because old sounds arrive already emotionally charged.

“They already carry a feeling before you’ve even put your own story on top of them.”

Then there’s texture.

krissy talks about it musically, but immediately connects it to another part of her identity.

Even the way she dresses.

“I’m kind of a maximalist and a minimalist at the same time.”

Which sounds contradictory until she explains it.

“I want it all, but I want it to have quality.”

That’s probably as useful a description of her musical instincts as anything else.

Voices From Real Life

Not every texture on the project comes from an instrument.

Some come from people.

krissy incorporates deeply personal voice samples into her music, including the voice of her grandmother.

“Some things just fit.”

The sample wasn’t a last-minute attempt to manufacture sentimentality. krissy and her producer Quiet Son had placed it into the track more than a year earlier.

It simply lived there.

And over time, it became part of the record’s emotional architecture.

“There’s something really special about having those moments memorialized forever in a piece of art I created.”

The appeal is both emotional and sonic.

“I love hearing these voices come through because they add another layer of meaning and understanding, but they also become another texture within the production.”

It’s intimacy without exposition.

“It feels personal without having to explain everything.”

She might not be finished with the idea either.

“Honestly, it might be something I continue doing.”

Imperfectly Perfect

There is another thread connecting WORD VOMIT with krissy’s previous EP, Eat This Cake.

Even the titles feel physical.

Eating.

Vomiting.

Consumption and expulsion.

Not exactly the vocabulary traditionally associated with pristine pop femininity.

That messiness feels appropriate.

“I think women are incredibly imperfectly perfect.”

And somewhere underneath the project, krissy thinks she is trying to reveal exactly that.

She wanted to be unfiltered with her friends’ stories.

Eventually she realized that meant being unfiltered with herself.

“For me, there’s something really feminine about allowing yourself to be messy, vulnerable, contradictory, and not feeling like you have to clean any of that up.”

There it is.

Maybe WORD VOMIT isn’t really about saying everything.

Maybe it’s about refusing to sanitize everything first.

All the People She’s Been

Interestingly, krissy didn’t begin with some grand narrative connecting the EP.

Initially, she says, the project felt “like a bit of a throwaway.”

Then “ICK!” happened.

The song became a playful rejection rather than an emotionally devastating one.

“Friction” went somewhere else entirely.

“‘Friction’ was more of a manifestation song — imagining what it would feel like to be completely enthralled by someone.”

“Word Vomit” became about releasing a situationship, although krissy deliberately left enough ambiguity for listeners to find themselves inside it.

And “BADMAN”?

“Just unapologetic.”

Only after the songs started sitting beside one another did something become apparent.

They were different reactions.

Different emotional identities.

Different people krissy had been.

“I’ve kind of been all of those people in the search for the right person.”

The story wasn’t designed.

It revealed itself.

“Even though it wasn’t necessarily intentional, I can still recognize myself in all of it.”

Genre Is Somebody Else’s Problem

Trying to determine precisely where krissy belongs between dance-pop, alternative pop, house, funk and rock might be useful for metadata.

It’s considerably less useful to her.

“Ultimately, I’m an independent artist, so I’ve never really felt restricted in creating.”

She values that independence specifically because it removes the requirement to solve that question.

And increasingly, she doesn’t think listeners experience music through such rigid boundaries anyway.

“I don’t really listen to an artist and think, ‘Okay, this is pop, this is house, this is rap.’”

Everything touches everything.

So her strategy is refreshingly uncomplicated.

“I’m honestly just trying to make something I like and hope other people are into it too.”

Performing Confidence Until It Becomes Yours

There’s another version of krissy hiding inside these songs.

She’s confident.

Seductive.

Unbothered.

Sometimes considerably more self-assured than the person standing behind the microphone.

krissy readily admits she’s shy.

“I’m the first to admit how shy I can feel, even in my own bedroom recording vocals.”

But recording creates a strange opportunity.

Once she gets past the self-consciousness, she can hear herself becoming someone else.

Or perhaps becoming another version of herself.

“‘Friction Tape,’ for example, sounds so seductive and self-assured.”

And then something interesting happens.

The performance begins influencing the performer.

“It actually encourages me to live those words a little more in real life, or at least perform them with that same confidence.”

Maybe confidence doesn’t always precede expression.

Maybe sometimes expression teaches you confidence.

“I think sometimes the music lets me access a version of myself that I’m still figuring out in real life.”

Unlearning the Filter

That might be the real evolution from Eat This Cake to WORD VOMIT.

Not simply bigger production.

Not another genre.

Not a more mature version of the same formula.

Less filtration.

“By writing somewhat from the perspective of other people, I think I kind of unlearned my own filter.”

It was a loophole.

Pretending she wasn’t talking about herself gave krissy permission to discover how much of herself she actually wanted to talk about.

“It gave me permission to say things I might have otherwise overthought.”

And she isn’t pretending the transformation is complete.

“It’s still something I’m working on, and definitely a challenge.”

Good.

Complete self-understanding would probably make considerably less interesting pop music anyway.

Instead, WORD VOMIT leaves krissy somewhere more exciting: increasingly comfortable with being revealing, increasingly uninterested in genre restrictions and increasingly willing to follow a sound before deciding what it’s supposed to be.

“I want to keep exploring that without overthinking where it needs to land.”

Maybe that’s the lesson buried inside the title.

Sometimes you don’t need to decide where the feeling belongs.

You just need to get it out.

In Conversation With krissy

WORD VOMIT is described as being about “everything better said out loud.” Was making this project an exercise in removing your own filter, and what became easier to admit once you stopped trying to make those feelings sound polite?

I think the cool thing about this project is that it started with me being kind of removed from the perspective, lyrically. I was really inspired by my friends’ relationships and writing from their point of view, so I felt like I had this freedom to say things I might normally be shy about. I could throw in certain phrases or thoughts and just think, “It’s not me,” so I didn’t really censor myself.

But then, obviously, it kind of is me. I think that distance gave me the space to let this more unfiltered version of myself come through. I realized there’s a lot more I want to say when I stop worrying so much about whether it sounds polite.

The project moves through attraction, confidence, relationships and intimacy while still being designed for the dancefloor. What interests you about putting emotionally complicated or uncomfortable thoughts inside music that physically makes people want to move?

She’s the forever blueprint — Robyn. I’ve always been really drawn to contradictions and the juxtaposition of songs. I think it makes you think a little more. A pop song is never just a pop song. There’s always some yearning, some annoyance, some sadness underneath it — just revealing enough while still letting you move your body.

Living in New York, that kind of emotional duality has always felt really natural to me. You can be on the subway on your way to work, crying, and no one even blinks an eye! You’re allowed to exist in more than one emotion at once. And I think that’s always made its way into how I understand pop music.

“BADMAN” begins in this distorted, nostalgic space before transforming into funk-house and eventually incorporating these much more aggressive alt-rock guitars. Does that unpredictability reflect the way you experience your own identity, or is it more about refusing to let listeners become comfortable with one version of your sound?

I love so many different genres, and honestly, I want to make something in practically all of them. So it’s not really about trying to test the listener — I’m kind of selfishly just making my favorite sound. WV feels like the foundation for that in a lot of ways. The sounds are exploratory enough that I can branch off and follow whatever I’m interested in.

And I guess, yeah, that probably speaks to my personality, too. I don’t really like feeling boxed into one thing.

Vintage textures appear throughout your music alongside sleek contemporary production. What is it about sounds that already carry a sense of memory that makes them useful when you’re writing about your own experiences?

I think it’s important for me, as a songwriter, to stay connected to what initially made me fall in love with music, outside of just loving to sing, which I’ve done forever. I’m really inspired by nostalgic, old-school sounds because they already carry a feeling before you’ve even put your own story on top of them.

I love texture, too, and I think that shows up in everything I do, even in the way I dress. I’m kind of a maximalist and a minimalist at the same time. I want it all, but I want it to have quality. I think that’s probably the through line for me.

You also incorporate deeply personal voice samples into the project. What does bringing fragments of real life into a produced pop environment add emotionally that you couldn’t communicate through songwriting alone?

Some things just fit, and there’s something really special about having those moments memorialized forever in a piece of art I created. That was kind of the main draw of having my grandmother on the track. It was actually something my producer, Quiet Son, and I had inserted over a year ago, so it had been living with the song for a while.

I love hearing these voices come through because they add another layer of meaning and understanding, but they also become another texture within the production. It feels personal without having to explain everything. Honestly, it might be something I continue doing.

From Eat This Cake to WORD VOMIT, even your project titles have this visceral, almost messy physicality to them. Are you consciously interested in pushing against the idea that femininity in pop needs to be polished, controlled or easily digestible?

I think women are incredibly imperfectly perfect, and on some subconscious level, I want to reveal that in every way I can. I wanted to be as unfiltered as possible with my friends, and ultimately with my own thoughts, because that’s when I feel the most authentic.

For me, there’s something really feminine about allowing yourself to be messy, vulnerable, contradictory, and not feeling like you have to clean any of that up.

“SOLO,” “ICK” and “FRICTION TAPE” introduced different pieces of this era before the full project arrived. When you finally put those songs alongside the rest of WORD VOMIT, did a larger narrative about your relationships or yourself emerge that you hadn’t originally planned?

Definitely. Initially, this project felt like a bit of a throwaway, and then everything shifted with “ICK!,” which became this really lighthearted, almost lovely rejection song. “Friction” was more of a manifestation song — imagining what it would feel like to be completely enthralled by someone. “Word Vomit” was about letting go of a situationship, although I intentionally kept it pretty vague. And “BADMAN” was just unapologetic.

I think ultimately, the project ended up showing all these different reactions and emotions — different versions of how I’ve felt at some point in my life. I’ve kind of been all of those people in the search for the right person. I love that it revealed itself that way, because even though it wasn’t necessarily intentional, I can still recognize myself in all of it.

Your music increasingly exists between alt-pop, rock, funk, house and club production. As your sound becomes harder to categorize, do you feel more freedom—or more pressure to explain to people exactly what kind of artist krissy is?

Ultimately, I’m an independent artist, so I’ve never really felt restricted in creating. I really value that freedom.

I also feel like genres are so blended now that I don’t really listen to an artist and think, “Okay, this is pop, this is house, this is rap.” It all kind of exists together. I’m honestly just trying to make something I like and hope other people are into it too.

There’s a tension in the project between introspection and attitude: extremely personal experiences are transformed into music that can sound bold, seductive and confident. Is confidence sometimes something you perform until you actually begin to believe it?

Yes, wholeheartedly. I’m the first to admit how shy I can feel, even in my own bedroom recording vocals. But once I put that aside, it’s kind of amazing to hear myself back. “Friction Tape,” for example, sounds so seductive and self-assured.

It actually encourages me to live those words a little more in real life, or at least perform them with that same confidence. I think sometimes the music lets me access a version of myself that I’m still figuring out in real life.

WORD VOMIT is being positioned as the next evolution of your sound after Eat This Cake. What did you have to unlearn about yourself—musically or personally—to make a project this uninhibited?

By writing somewhat from the perspective of other people, I think I kind of unlearned my own filter. It gave me permission to say things I might have otherwise overthought, and through this project I realized just how much more revealing I actually want to be.

It’s still something I’m working on, and definitely a challenge, but I think that’s what makes it exciting. Musically, I’m still really drawn to layered production and genre-bending, and I want to keep exploring that without overthinking where it needs to land.