Track By Track: Kris Angelis Breaks Down Her New EP Pieces That Were Stolen

Kris Angelis has been singing since before she could talk.

Inspired by songwriters like Brandi Carlile and Ray Lamontagne, she developed a prowess for penning tracks that tell a story. It's a talent that not only allows her to express herself but that also helped place her as a finalist in the 2017 International Songwriting Competition and that helped land her 2017 EP Heartbreak is Contagious in the top 10 of the iTunes Singer-Songwriter chart.

Kris just released her new EP Pieces That Were Stolen, a collection of four beautiful, gently powerful songs that speak right to the heart. She broke down each track for Musical Notes Global. Check it out below.

1. PHOTOBOOTH

A night full of colors, lights and dancing, stolen kisses and full moon, laughing and love captured in a fleeting moment inside a photo booth. The night this song is about was like a beautiful dream and I hoped it would finally be the beginning of something with a special person, but it turned out to be the end and all the photos with their imagined futures were caught in a flash of light and they are all that is left. The song is a dance through bittersweet nostalgia holding on to the good memories and letting go of the sad.

2. THE SPARROW

"I am the sparrow you let loose inside the mine" Like the canaries that miners would bring down into the mines to warn of air quality problems (they would stop singing), sparrows have been known to do the same and I liked that sparrows also symbolize true love as well as the mundane and sailors used to get sparrow tattoos because they believed they would take their souls to heaven if they died at sea. I wrote and recorded this song during when my boyfriend was having open heart surgery and I was there helping him through the night when he was scared before and after. But it's also just a love song about taking a leap or risk and doing something scary or dangerous because the positive outcome would be worth it which is how romantic love is. It's comforting and softly empowering. I wrote it with my producer Billy Lefler and Rich Jacques who just won a Grammy with Lisa Loeb.

3. STAINED GLASS

Imagine your life is a clear piece of glass or a house of glass and as you go through life, parts of you are colored by your experiences and emotions. Things may crack or break you at times but you can be put back together like stained glass into something even more beautiful and stronger than it was before. I wrote this song with Garrison Starr in about an hour. It was one of those magical sessions where it all comes together. I did have the concept and a lot of the lyric ideas already when we got together but was having trouble with a melody that went with the feeling I wanted to express. Garrison listened to my ideas and then started singing and I said "YES! That's it!" It was like breathing fresh air.

4. BRAVEST

Sometimes walking away from something or someone is the hardest and bravest thing you'll ever do. Toxic situations and relationships can fool you and your heart wants you to stay but letting go and taking care of yourself - believing that you can - will be the best thing for you. This may be the song that took the longest for me to finish. I wasn't working on it constantly but it took several years from when I began and I think it's because I needed to go through a couple of those situations to really understand, learn, have all the right words, and be ready to put it out there. The lyrics embrace how it feels, how hard it is and I hope that will be relatable to people who may be experiencing something like it and give them strength. I wrote it with Mallory Trunnell of Crimson Calamity.