Joan Krygsman is a songwriter, musician and artist whose work lives somewhere between the playful, the peculiar and the deeply personal.

She came to guitar relatively late, picking it up about fifteen years ago, and began writing songs roughly five years later. For eight years she fronted Trout Lily, a quirky five-piece that grew out of a duo and developed a distinctive, ragged, swingy sound built around her original songs.

Her songwriting, however, has always started with words. She is drawn to wordplay, clever rhymes, double entendres and the strange possibilities that emerge when a simple idea is allowed to wander. Her songs can be funny, surreal and slightly ridiculous, but often carry something more vulnerable underneath.

After Trout Lily dissolved after SuperCrawl in 2025, Krygsman began writing again. What started as scattered notes and half-formed ideas gradually became a collection of songs exploring connection, independence, boundaries, relationships and the often absurd business of being human.

Her newest work marks a departure from her earlier music. Rather than building songs around a live band, she has embraced a more studio-based process, combining electronic elements with live instrumentation, and collaborating with musicians as each song requires.

The result is music that doesn't fit neatly into a single category - and that's just as she likes it.

Funny, strange, occasionally provocative and always rooted in the lyrics, the songs on Bag of Fingers reflect an artist who is still learning the rules of music while happily finding new ways to ignore them.