Light rarely leaks into Kathryn Mohr ’s songs. Since her early recordings, the Bay Area musician has paired minimal arrangements—shadowy acoustic guitars, icy synthwork, and ghostly field recordings—with delicate yet desperate delivery, as if every whisper and gasp were being squeezed out of her by the weight of the world bearing down on her chest. Her lyrics are cryptic and imagistic, and rarely suggest much optimism; each song is a puzzle box that only snaps open to reveal a world of pain. Mohr’s last album—2025’s Waiting Room —was made at an artist retreat in a rural village in Iceland. She has said that recording outside the rhythms of her daily life is a practical choice, a way to “focus more and make new connections with my brain.” But every day she recorded until her body hurt, and you can hear the self-imposed isolation and introspection in every song on that album; each drifting piece feels like a meditation where you can’t seem to get your darkest thoughts out of your head.…