Badlands is the stunning and transformative musical project of singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Catharina Jaunviksna. Her new music blends elements of rustic folk and eerie ambient sounds into a collection of unique lo-fi ballads. Her latest single "The Dead" is shared alongside a haunting and raw music video.
With "The Dead", Badlands shares a poignant song all about the sacrifices, danger and human destruction in war and warlike circumstances. The track also details the responsibility people carry being a witness to such events and the change in who they become from it. Lyrics including, "You got blood on your hands / The weight of her body / The patch of her land / There is so little / We can do for the dead," encapsulate this soul-stirring narrative with striking emotional precision. Musically, “The Dead” is a masterwork of atmosphere and restraint. Ethereal vocals drift over mood-drenched percussion and lush string arrangements, while organic instrumentation swells and recedes like waves of memory. The result is both intimate and cinematic, a soundscape that lingers long after the final note fades.
The accompanying video mirrors the song’s emotional gravity, pairing minimal yet evocative imagery, an emotive close-up, a woman curled in the fetal position, to evoke vulnerability, grief, and rebirth. Together, the song and visuals form a deeply affecting meditation on loss and remembrance, cementing Badlands as one of the most compelling voices in experimental music today.
Connect with Badlands: INSTAGRAM
*photo credit Joel Ståhl
