How does Kacey Musgraves spend her mornings? “Effectively, I’m at present in my kitchen,” she says, showing on our Zoom name bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, dappled daylight on treetops seen via the home windows of the ethereal, light-filled room behind her. “I had a Greek yogurt bowl with some berries and honey. And now? Now, I’m speaking to you.”

If a hearken to Musgraves’s new album, Deeper Effectively, is something to go by, Musgraves has been in a bucolic, yogurt-and-berries temper currently. (The title monitor begins together with her noting that her Saturn has returned, whereas one other tune, titled “Coronary heart of the Woods,” is an ode to her new residence deep in a Tennessee forest.) It’s a return to the earth that feels by some means proper. The 35-year-old nation famous person, identified for her sharp-tongued lyrics and progressive values, has spent the previous decade strapped to the rollercoaster of fame: first in Nashville, after which internationally, as her masterful third album, Golden Hour—a wide ranging feat of songwriting and sonic creativeness that toyed with psychedelia and full-fledged pop—noticed her turn out to be the crossover star she’d all the time wished to be, topping charts and successful the Grammy for album of the 12 months.

With Deeper Effectively, she makes a brand new pivot by getting into the world of people—albeit Musgraves-style. The opening monitor, “Cardinal,” begins with a “California Dreamin’”-esque guitar strum, earlier than cantering right into a ’70s groove that recollects Fleetwood Mac at their prime. She additionally cites the affect of Vashti Bunyan, the English people singer-songwriter who wrote a lot of her best-known music whereas driving a horse and cart via rural Scotland; whereas the album art work sees her in a fuzzy sweater, clutching a sprig of crimson clover. “I type of had this imaginative and prescient of this pioneer lady placing her hair up after the breakup the final album [Star-Crossed] was all about, and discovering her roots once more,” says Musgraves. “And I really like that cottagecore is having a second! It’s an aesthetic I discover loads of consolation in. That is my cozy period,” she provides, laughing. Suppose: Golden Hour’s older, wiser sister, who might or will not be into crystals and breathwork and retaining a gratitude journal.