Kay Krull - I Dreamed Once I Was May Queen

Released May 1st, 2026 - Pre-Order now!

Use Discount code LOCAL for free local pickup at Landlocked Music in Bloomington, IN.

I Dreamed Once I Was May Queen is the sophomore album from Bloomington, IN songwriter Kay Krull. The bulk of the album was recorded by her trio live in a small room over the course of one weekend, with additional arrangements added in the following months. While those arrangements certainly add a further depth to the matter, at its core May Queen is a collection of performances. At her core, Kay Krull is a performer.

That’s not to say that she is the kind of performer who fits readily and snugly into the framework of performance as commodity. These songs, though confident, have a fragileness to them, less likely to be imparted on a hip club stage and more likely to be heard in the living room of an auntie who drinks. A sonically teased yank on the stories passed from singer to singer in the parlor of Malvina Reynolds or the backyard of Jean Ritchie. Lyrics about the big everything and the little nothing, hummed low to the bells of the church down the road while we go about our days, chopping the eternal vegetables of our minds and of our moment.

In many ways the album acts as a total reset. Kay Krull’s debut, Saturn In Love, was mostly recorded before the start of the 2020 pandemic. The mood of the world, to put it gently, has changed. Kay has changed with it. Or because of it. She jettisoned her backing band, shaved her head, grew her hair back, learned how to tattoo, got married, etc. Her lyrics grew into themselves, scaring up relatable empathy in the most frightening corners; making us feel less alone as we recognize a shared sense of potential hopelessness; pointing to small everyday love; fretting over little worries while laughing hard into the shoulder of the loftiest struggles.

When it came time to start focusing on music again, she found a sure footing for a new way to present her sound as well. No more drums. Electric guitars only, sometimes cheap and only almost in tune. A tiny keyboard. Little sounds treated as big ones, played with a blown-out sense of harmonic disregard but still in service of the gentlest idea.

A fresh trio: Kay Krull on electric guitar, Caleb Hickman on casio & lap steel, and David Brown on electric guitar number two. Everyone sings. It’s hard to tell if it is a quiet band or a loud band because the feelings are quite large and the dynamics swing wide. There’s an atmosphere. It’s that big = small conundrum again, projected into life much like the sprawling web of small details we hear in the roiling quietness of Leonard Cohen’s Isle of Wight Army. Simultaneously a gentle hum and a jaggedly beautiful wall of sound.

The ten tracks that make up I Dreamed Once I Was May Queen sound like home while maintaining that elusive sense of mystery. Like a door cracked open with a thin stream of light shining through, a familiar voice laughing warmly on the other side. Like a glass dropped on the floor in the night when you tried to keep quiet.

RIYL:
Roy Orbison, Mount Eerie, Leonard Cohen, Jean Ritchie, Grouper, Marissa Nadler, Everly Brothers, Angel Olsen