Bara Karin releases “What a Waste”

Stockholm-based artist and producer Bara Karin creates her own unique style of spacey pop music wrapped up with electronic tones. A professional psychologist by day, she draws on her experience in her career to weave profound lyricism carrying important messages in her music, earning a reputation as a champion for women in the process.

With her uncompromising writing, she’s not afraid to shy away from difficult or awkward topics, adding perspective to societal issues. Her recent single from earlier this year, “Five Times a Day” shed light on life within the Swedish health care system, the sound of pull jars colliding with synths to sonically recount how a young woman was booted from a psychiatric residential facility and had to finance her medication by selling her body.

Providing a voice for the downtrodden, with her music she uses her artistic work for her altruistic beliefs, delivered via her fiercely original and distinct sound. Off the back of playing the Pride festival in her hometown of Stockholm, she’s now gearing up to drop her debut full-length record, covering themes of sex trafficking, domestic violence and the porn industry framed by a mix of sternness and humour, continuing to tackle taboo subjects much like she does when holding therapy sessions.

Bringing us her latest single, she shares the new track titled “What a Waste”. Laying down a rhythmic pop sound lifted by a piquant arrangement of colourful instrumentation and capped by her Björk-esque vocal delivery, with “What a Waste”, Bara Karin weaves a unique song written about spending time and money on an unrealistic ideal while dating.

With playful touches in the instrumentation serving to accent the light-hearted side in her lyrics, “What a Waste” is a modern anthem for women to cast off superficial expectations and embrace their own beauty and worth. Commenting on the context of the song, Bara Karin shares, “Sometimes I feel like I’m born within the wrong body. Not that I don’t want to be a woman, but with that whole Kim Kardashian ideal, it’s a constant struggle with yourself when you don’t look like that.”

Listen to What a Waste below