You can spot a pop star that came of age during the Tumblr era a mile off. As Karin Ann enters her Cover shoot in downtown Austin, her mishmashed influences are on full display: neon green nails paired with The Great Gatsby-inspired makeup, an Apple Watch set against a floor-length gown embellished with rhinestones. Sum 41 songs play from a speaker as Karin slowly waltzes around the brightly lit studio, fondling her pearl necklace. The contrasts in style and aesthetic are delightful.
It’s all by design, of course. The 21-year-old will later tell NME that she spent much of her teenage years obsessing over the social media platform and its hyper-stylised images of classic movies, bands and grunge fashion, as well as being “heavily involved” in fandoms on Twitter and Instagram. This afternoon, she carries an Emma Chamberlain-branded tote bag – a nod to the YouTube star that played a significant role in late 2010s stan culture.
“This is kind of dark, but I don’t know if I would still be here if it wasn’t for social media. It opened up an entirely different world,” says Karin as we begin our interview, sitting inside a canteen-style vegan café. She’s describing her upbringing in rural Slovakia, talking quickly and passionately, wired on a Texas-size lemonade. “It showed me people who were living outside of the box and striving. I wanted to be like that.”
It is difficult to pin ‘Through The Telescope’, Karin’s debut album (released May 10), to a specific sound, though it shares the pillowy, barely-there instrumentation of Clairo’s ‘Sling’ era, with vocals that veer from whispering to jazz-inflected singing but never lose a sense of intimacy. Through explorative songs that discuss losing faith (‘I Don’t Believe In God’) to the unfamiliar thrills and frisson of a new love (‘She’), the record represents Karin’s teenage state of being: articulate, outspoken and extremely online.
A true child of the internet, she attests her broad worldview to being able to speak directly with other young, LGBTQ+-identifying musicians online; Karin says that, when she was younger, she connected with Norway’s Girl In Red via Facebook. “I found these artists around the time I started questioning my sexuality,” she says. She grew up in the shadow of the queer pop explosion, dubbed ‘20gayteen’ by Hayley Kiyoko – think: the mainstream breakthroughs of Troye Sivan, Halsey, Kehlani. “They spoke of liberal ideas and going against the system – things that I didn’t always see back home.”
Karin was raised in Žilina, a mountainous region in northwestern Slovakia. She grew up in an environment that allowed her to explore any sport she put her heart to, from figure skating and ballet to archery, while also pursuing other creative endeavours like theatre and music. There’s a throughline to be found between the freedom of her childhood and her earlier material, which sounds like a musician exploring a multitude of avenues – from unabashedly dramatic riffs to pop gloominess à la early Billie Eilish – in order to figure out her identity. “I’m just chasing this feeling / The one that I see on silver screens,” she sang on ‘Almost 20’.
“I was always very big on expressing myself, even though I was a shy kid,” she explains. “I was always going to be creative. I feel like this analogy applies to what living in Slovakia felt like to me: if I was ever going to work a nine-to-five job, it would feel like being stuck in a pot with the lid on, unable to let all the steam out. I knew there was more waiting for me in life.”
All of this gives insight into the subdued sound of ‘Through The Telescope’: the record is beautifully dreamy, and reflects a desire to look beyond one’s immediate surroundings. “I wanted to make it out of Slovakia not just for my own sake, but to show people that it’s possible,” Karin says of her recent relocation to Los Angeles. “The country isn’t really changing with the times. Part of the reason I’m driven to ‘make it’ is so I can help others.”
“Maya Hawke changed my perspective on songwriting. She got me out of a rut”
She continues: “I would say that it doesn’t exactly feel safe to be [yourself] there. I had a girlfriend at one point, and we wouldn’t go outside holding hands as we were scared we were going to get attacked.”
For Karin, daunting – and cruelly, life-changing – moments like these disrupted an adolescence that otherwise contained little torment. In October 2022, two people were murdered in a hate crime outside a gay bar in Slovakia’s capital of Bratislava; same-sex marriage is still banned there and in bordering countries Ukraine and Poland.
In 2021, on one of the latter’s largest television channels, TVP2, Karin made a statement against eastern Europe’s storied resistance towards queer rights. “I would like to dedicate this to the LGBTQ+ people here, because I know you don’t have it easy. You deserve to feel safe,” she said, wrapping the Pride flag around herself as she performed her single ‘Babyboy’. The speech made headlines across Poland, resulting in TVP2 firing their breakfast programme editor and claiming Karin “[caused] discomfort to many viewers”. This controversy had a “big effect” on her, she affirms today: it finally made Karin feel more comfortable not just in her own skin, but her mission statement.
Karin’s frankness has won her a burgeoning fanbase in her home nation and local support slots with the likes of My Chemical Romance, but ‘Through The Telescope’ should carry her into the global arena. As meditative as the record can be, her music is often compassionate and uplifting – standout ‘The Band Keeps Playing’ is a slice of peppy, minimal pop that fizzles with a Sylvan Esso-esque energy.
One of Karin’s key touchstones while working on this album was Maya Hawke, who’s been releasing beaming, ambient folk songs when she’s not starring in Stranger Things. Having “obsessed” over her 2022 LP ‘Moss’, Karin requested that her team put her in touch with producer and Hawke collaborator Benjamin Lazar Davis; the pair clicked “instantly” while working together, and Davis went on to connect Karin and Hawke via FaceTime.
“At first, I didn’t even want to make an album. I have always been headstrong but I was struggling to handle the pressure and was in a shit position with my health. I was thinking about quitting music – the stakes were that high,” says Karin. “But then I got on this call with Maya, and she really changed my perspective on songwriting. She got me out of a rut.”
Behind the scenes, Karin’s personal life had been unravelling. Following the release of her high-octane ‘Side Effects Of Being Human’ EP, she slogged through the summer of 2022 on a schedule that was “locked down minute-to-minute”. She had to push through dozens of performances and press commitments while quietly battling tetany – a condition that results in involuntary muscle cramps, which for Karin could last up to an hour at a time.
She recalls having to run out of an interview before a show in Rome in order to manage a severe flare-up. “I didn’t even make it back to the green room. It felt like a mixture of a panic attack and a seizure; I couldn’t walk, nor barely breathe. My tongue went numb. Afterwards, I knew I was at breaking point.”
It would be weeks before she would actually find out what was happening to her. During this period, Karin took a break from all work and social media, and returned home to spend time with her dogs, taking each day as it came. She knew the first step to recovery was to momentarily stop thinking about music altogether.
“I had to get better at saying ‘no’ and setting boundaries,” she says. “I had to ask myself questions like, ‘How much am I willing to do before I sacrifice my health entirely?’ ‘How far do I really want to push myself this time?’”
And yet, here she is, smiling. Karin beams as she discusses how she has managed to channel the emotional toll of her illness into her most expansive music yet. Still wearing a full face of makeup from our photoshoot (bar the heart-shaped lip paint), Ann’s laughter is warm and frequent. The pain is still raw, she says, but she is ready to move on.
Karin is now gearing up to play live again, starting with two offshoot shows at SXSW here in Austin. She is feeling reflective and ready to tell her story. There is an autobiographical thread through both her songwriting and the way she expresses herself; she wants people to see her struggles as well as her triumphs.
“Part of the reason I’m driven to ‘make it’ is so I can help others”
Towards the end of our conversation, Karin rolls up the sleeve of her t-shirt and rotates her arm to show off a collection of stick-and-poke tattoos, not limited to but including a spider, fairy, paper clip, dog bowl and an apple. “I don’t regret any of them, they’re like a diary to me,” she says of her body art. “They represent all the different phases of my life.”
If you were to get inked in honour of the new album, what would you get?
“Something celestial,” she responds without hesitation. “Like, some stars and a big, weird-looking moon!” And there it is, that eccentric streak shining through once more.
Karin Ann’s debut album ‘Through The Telescope’ will be released on May 10 via PIAS
Listen to Karin Ann’s exclusive playlist to accompany The Cover below on Spotify and here on Apple Music
Words: Sophie Williams
Photography: Sam Keeler
Styling: Sophia Katyea
Hair: Brandy Wilson
Make-up: Karin Ann
Label: PIAS