Karshni Boxes Off January With 'Josephine On The Floor' & 'Gift'

After spending 2022 dropping single after single to find a more surefooted lyrical depth with each one, Karshni released two new ones with 'Josephine On The Floor' and 'Gift' near the end of January 2023.

The erstwhile Pune-based now New Delhi-resident singer-songwriter has become known to make her mark with thoughtful lyricism. With the new singles, her melodies and production follow suit to give the words a heightened emotional agency.

While 'Josephine On The Floor' arrives as a more impactful release, having dropped across the conventional channels (i.e. all major platforms) and rests upon a refrain-based structure to be her most accessible solo offering, 'Gift' is the best demonstration of the aforementioned case of melody and arrangement rising up to complement the messaging.

"'Josephine on the Floor' is about revisiting a certain artefact or memory that reminds me of who I am at my very core. At first, this was something childlike, a beautiful naïveté I may have lost but now the meanings float around ranging from gender to sexuality and how I experience more complex developments in who I have become without being affected by the world around me," says Karshni for a track that chooses to tell a story that beckons for attention.

On the other hand, 'Gift', another one of Karshni's Bandcamp-only offerings, is like a meandering through introspective thoughts.

Whether lines like "She catches her reflection / Does a quick inspection / Feels like she might be dead / All because of this blackhead" from 'Josephine On The Floor' or "I should shut up / I should smother my own mouth / I should shrink in size and be a mime / And plot my running out / You are pretty / And graceful as a swan" from 'Gift', Karshni finds space for the mundane and most relatable, like self-rejection and struggling with self-assuredness, and elevates it with the beauty of poetry and the dramatic.

Listen to the singles and follow Karshni for more information.