Several things happened before a warm day when I met the four members of Frankie Cosmos in a Brooklyn studio to begin making their album. Greta Kline spent a few years living with her family and writing a mere 100 songs, turning her empathy anywhere from the navel to the moon, rendering it all warm, close, and reflexively humorous. In music, everyone loves a teen sensation, but Kline has never been more fascinating than now, a decade into being one of the most prolific songwriters of her generation. Shes lodged in my mind amongst authors, other observational alchemists like Rachel Cusk or Sheila Heti, but shes funnier, which is a charm endemic to musicians.

Meanwhile Frankie Cosmos, a rare, dwindling democratic entity called a band, had been on pandemic hiatus with no idea if theyd continue. In the openness of that uncertainty, they met up, planning to hang