Have you ever looked in the mirror and seen someone completely different? A version of your persona that looks like it was carved out of the void; made up of all of your insecurities and apprehensions, conjured up into one being? That’s one of the narratives of Kristian North’s latest single and music video “The Masked Singer,” a grooving and somewhat satirical take on the shackles of reality television and speculative science fiction.

Under some smooth ‘70s inspired disco psych funk, the track follows Kristian North’s vocals (which, here are a bit The Boss meets Peter Gabriel) and lyrics about time travel, treading a lot of ground in four minutes. A highlight has to be the spacey auxiliary percussion next to the freak jazz saxophone solo. Next comes a bass riff that songs like it was produced underwater while the sparkle synthesizer chews the scenery. It’s a song that sounds as timeless as its theme.

The music video, developed by the cartoon animator Jordan “Dr Cool” Minkoff (who has worked with Suuns, The Besnard Lakes, and Built To Spill) features Kristians caricature joining together, simultaneously, with a more sinister and manic looking doppelganger. Is this the eponymous “Masked Singer.” We can’t know for sure.

“The Masked Singer” also comes with the announcement of Kristian North’s third album, Pseudoscience Fiction on May 19, 2023 via Mothland. Pseudoscience Fiction continues this deep dive into the sometimes frightening reality of being in an age of technological advancement with much more of the disco funk rock style Kristian North has adopted in recent years.

“Pseudoscience Fiction came from a simple concept; the last few years I keep hearing people say “this is just like science fiction!” That’s where the album title came from, and that’s the theme—a science fiction story that could happen today,” Kristian says. “Science fiction has always been this way; a fictional future world used to examine the past or present.”

Kristian North
Pseudoscience Fiction
Tracklist
Mothland

1. Role Of The Dice
2. Masterpiece
3. The Masked Singer
4. Mercy [ft. Elle Barbara]
5. Pseudoscience Fiction
6. Cozumel
7. Fear Factor
8. Cancel Your Plans

Words by Stephan Boissonneault

Pre-order Pseudoscience Fiction by Kristian North HERE