Loren Berí

Loren Berí’s debut EP Stray Cat Kingdom is inhabited by madcap characters and intersecting storylines in an alternate version of Brooklyn. Set to synth-pop, a cast of artists in New York arrive, fall out with one another, meet their heroes, or become heroes themselves.

These five songs are lush, expansive psych-pop at its richest and most tantalizingly melodic, introducing a bold new voice in indie-pop and inviting listeners to explore the bigger picture not only on the album, but with life itself as well. The funky, spiky style of psych-pop greats of Montreal can be heard throughout, from the arpeggiating synths of “My Brooklyn (Is Better Than Yours)” to the starry-eyed melodies of “Genesis 2.0.” Fittingly, the punchy anthem “Greta’s Inn” features NYC indie-pop vet and former of Montreal member Kishi Bashi, as he transports the listener to a mystical club space, tying into Stray Cat Kingdom’s larger projection that nothing may be as it seems.

Stray Cat Kingdom is the culmination of Berí’s lifetime immersed in all things music. He was raised on classical music through his grandfather’s frequent involvement in concert planning; after teaching himself to play piano as a teenager, he started writing songs at the age of 15 and bounced around in several bands throughout college. While embracing a variety of musical styles ranging from bouncy synth music to ornate chamber pop, Berí kept his classical fixations front and center throughout: “Harmonically, that’s where my heart lies,” he explains.

Work on Stray Cat Kingdom started after Beri had established roots in NYC, a moment when he also found himself at a general crossroads: “I was having a tough time, artistically and otherwise,” he recalls. “I wasn’t sure I really wanted to put myself out there anymore. But continuing to write songs was better for my mental health than not doing so.” After befriending fellow musician and producer O Mer—and finding out that Omer grew up with Loren’s cousins—the latter encouraged Loren to send him his music and ended up contributing production to several of the album’s songs.

Beri continued demoing and recording what would become Stray Cat Kingdom during the pandemic, tying together the songs’ overlying concept while referring to an unrealized pilot script that “helped me develop what was going on in the music.” The wide-scale setting is an alternate-universe version of Brooklyn that the album’s protagonist Zo (short for “Lorenzo”) lives in. “I found out recently that my family descends from an Italian family of Kabbalist rabbis, instrument makers, musicians, and poets. I didn’t know I had Italian roots, but I was randomly drawn to learning Italian when I was 19” Beri explains.

“I always thought my roots were just Jewish on both sides and from other countries besides Italy. What if the Italian version of me never left Italy? I wanted Zo to have a similar identity revelation, too—almost the inverse of mine, as if our ancestors never left Italy. So Zo grows up there, descends from conversos, moves to New York a classical composer, and in New York he finds out he's Jewish and he likes synth-pop music. ”

The results are a fantastical journey that also feels resolutely down-to-earth, with Berí’s observational lyrics—at once funny and insightful, emotional and witty—grounding his impossibly lush sonic flights of fancy. First single “My Brooklyn (Is Better Than Yours)” is lovely and laconic, as Berí’s vocals lay atop a percolating melody as he ruminates on gentrification and a chattering creative class. “It was a joke song at first—it made me crack up,” he explains. “But then some time passed, and the idea in my mind became all these people talking along with an exaggerated version of myself—a careless jerk, some Bushwick hipster. It’s a satire of where I found myself.”

After arriving to New York, “Berí’s character ‘Zo’ unknowingly traipses into Greta’s Inn-an otherworldly speakeasy, a hideaway shrouded in mist, “someplace downtown no one will ever find.” Here, icons of past and present meet, Zo seemingly an accidental guest. Grappling with some of the same issues as Berí, at first he questions if this was real. Berí explains, “Through my experiences with manic episodes, at the end there’s always a shred of truth even when I’ve imagined other things. Afterwards there’s always something real that you can’t explain away.” Stray Cat Kingdom, out June 22nd, 2022 is an evocative, deeply felt journey to the heart of the real, marking an auspicious debut for Berí as a songwriter and artist.
-Bio by Larry Fitzmaurice