Turning trauma into meaning, Alysia Kraft finds growth beyond the forces of nature that are outside of our control on her newest track.
Taking a terrifying experience and turning it into art, Alysia Kraft explores the ever changing tides of life on “Little River” out April 15. This powerful indie-rock track gives voice to the struggle everyone can relate to: the art of letting go. She explains how the song was inspired by a near-death experience in which she nearly drowned in the river by her parent’s ranch two years ago. “I got trapped beneath a debris pile for what felt like forever and then pushed beneath it by the current right as I was about to lose consciousness,” she explains.
After working through some of her PTSD, her therapist told her “you can choose what you want to leave in that river now…That was the catalyst to start leaving behind what no longer served me and to let myself be fluid and changing and changed by experiences instead of holding so tightly to what is known and what has been.” In this way, “Little River” is an evocative story grounded in the past, but looking towards the future.
“You don’t have to be what you’ve been ever again. You don’t have to keep living it over again,” she sings. Kraft produces this encouraging sentiment not only lyrically but sonically as well. The track at first is slow-moving and almost nostalgic-sounding until the inevitable crash of the drums hits the chorus, like a powerful call to action. This is shown visually in her music video, which she shot in collaboration with the 53:14 Music Experiment, an initiative which pairs local musicians with filmmakers to create a music video in 53 hours and 14 minutes. “The river changes every minute – it’s never the same river – and this song is about the personal liberation that comes with staying inside the stream of life and experiencing change and reinvention and possibility inside yourself while breaking cycles that keep you stuck in one place.”
