Next Thing

Indie-pop miniaturist Frankie Cosmos makes music like minimal sculpture or haiku: radically simple but deceptively complicated at the same time. Her second studio album, Next Thing, is by turns tender and funny, innocent and wise, often within the space of the same brief line. (Take this one, from “Fool”: “Once I was happy, you found it intriguing/Then you got to me and left me bleeding.”) And though her songs are brief and the arrangements simple, the album feels surprisingly complete—the product of someone who knows exactly what they want to say and doesn’t waste time with one word more.