Having spent a decade honing their craft in the Philly indie scene and beyond, the band Kississippi last year released a simple-yet-profound project that encapsulated their growth in a tidy four-song set. The damned if i do it four you EP shows lead singer and songwriter Zoe Allaire Reynolds at her most emotive and vulnerable; it also finds the band reaching their most exhilarating pop highs. The tagline on their Bandcamp is “music to yearn to,” and these four songs of love, loss, and turning the page couldn’t fit that bill more perfectly.
In this week’s Key Studio Session, recorded in late 2024, the Kississippi live band — featuring Jon Furson on bass and vocals, as well as Lowecoaster’s Zack Cummings on guitar and Nolee Morris on drums — plays damned from front to back in the WXPN performance studio. It’s a journey in twelve minutes: the pulsing build of opener “Smaller Half,” the dancefloor-ready perfection of “Last Time,” the playful pop-punk of “Jesus Freak” (a song co-written with Dan Campbell of The Wonder Years), and the breathtaking introspection of “Bird Song.”
Watch the full performance above and check out a gallery of photos from the session below. Support the project over at Bandcamp, and see what Reynolds is up to over at Kissy’s IG. For more, read her interview with WXPN’s Paige Walter.