Karen Marie Ørsted Is Going to Ruin Your Afternoon

Forget Lykke Li. Forget Bat for Lashes, forget Grimes. The only artist currently making me pace around my apartment in ugly white cotton socks like an idiot is a 25-year-old from Denmark named Karen Marie Ørsted, who records under the name MØ—which translates roughly to "maiden" or "virgin," which tells you something about her taste for irony.

Don’t Wanna Dance, XXX 88, Waste of Time—these songs have a kinetic pressure to them, an energy that doesn’t build toward anything so much as it just detonates, repeatedly. There’s electro architecture underneath, but MØ’s voice sits on top of it like she’s barely contained by the production, like the whole thing might come apart if she pushed a little harder. I keep putting these tracks on at volumes that are probably inconsiderate to everyone nearby.

Her debut album No Mythologies to Follow came out in February, and her first EP Bikini Daze is worth hunting down. The trajectory feels real—not another Scandinavian pop export processed through a Stockholm production house until all the edges are gone, but someone with a specific nervous energy that hasn’t been smoothed out yet. Press play and clear some floor space.