It's the kind of story every independent musician hopes for: Last January, Dagmar Zuniga uploaded her debut album to Bandcamp and YouTube, and it quietly blew up. Quietly because it's not like in filth your mystery is kingdom / far smile peasant in yellow music got the Heavy Metal treatment, but also, how else could a collection of sparse, haunting home-recorded experimental folk songs blow up except quietly? The record made its way to Phil Elverum, who took Zuniga on tour, and to the tastemaking record label AD 93, which is reissuing it today, 14 months after its original DIY release.
Factually speaking, the songs on in filth your mystery is kingdom / far smile peasant in yellow music were recorded on a Tascam 424 between 2019 and 2024 in locations including New York, Norway, and Athens, GA. But they seem to exist in alternate dimensions outside of time, flickering in and out of our reality like ghosts. There were a few guest contributors, like Zach Phillips of Fievel Is Glauque, who contributes piano to "Even God Gets Stuck In Devotion," but it's odd to think about regular human beings producing this music. Mount Eerie is a meaningful reference point, as are Grouper, Broadcast, Cindy Lee, and Jessica Pratt. I hear glimpses of countless spectral folk albums in Zuniga's work, yet there's nothing quite like it.
Tap into Zuniga's wavelength below.
in filth your mystery is kingdom / far smile peasant in yellow music is out now via AD 93.
