CASSANDRA CROFT

American songwriter Cassandra Croft writes intimate songs from dreamlike impressions. 
Raised in California and the Pacific Northwest, now living in New York City, she draws imagery from the natural world and from meditations on time, memory, love, and loss.  Before studying voice and chamber music, she learned to write songs at an early age from her father, inventor of hypersonic sound (James Croft), who privately played improvised piano. With an innate sense of melody, her voice—lauded by NPR Music as "gorgeous, ethereal, [and] haunting"—disarms the listener with stark, vulnerable lyricism and resonant warmth.
As a performer, she places her voice at the forefront of ephemeral arrangements for acoustic guitar and piano, drawing from structures of American folk traditions and the hypnagogic qualities of dream pop. Composed methodically for minimalism, yet lustrous and dense in layers of piano, guitar, and synth, her recorded songs position euphoria as softly restrained, and beauty as the line where melancholy meets with life-affirming hope. 

Croft’s vocals first appeared in 2020 on a compilation by Grouper; she has since released singles via Nettwerk music and Smuggler's Way (Domino). She has recorded with contemporary icons including Julianna Barwick, Rachika Nayar, and Nina Keith—and performed alongside and opened for acts including Alessandro Cortini, Rachika Nayar, and Walt McClements at venues spanning Knockdown Center in NYC to Zebulon in LA. 

In 2024, her vocals were featured on the critically acclaimed TRANSA album via Red Hot Org. In the same year, she was an artist-in-residence at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory—where she deepened her lyrical studies on ecological systems—with support from the National Science Foundation.
 

On her 2024 Randall Dunn-produced debut single ‘Country Of Your Mind’,  Lyndsey Knecht of Red Hot Org wrote,

  •                “In this first drop by Cassandra Croft under her solo artist name, we meet a fully inhabited performer with an obviously exacting ear. Croft looms ominous as a songwriter just as her delivery hits the listener straight on with the unforgettable lines: ‘Hold the year / As a smile / Cast down / By a star / In revolt.’”  


In July 2025, Croft was featured as a vocalist and writer on ‘Serpentine’, released on the debut Disiniblud record via Smuggler’s Way—to critical acclaim from Pitchfork, NPR Music, DJ Mag, and Fader. On Croft's vocal performance and lyrics, NPR’s All Songs Considered aired the review:

  •            "...the vocalists [on the record] act as a layer rather than a focal point; the one track where that’s an exception is ‘Serpentine’ featuring Cassandra Croft. Her voice on this is so gorgeous; she gives this ethereal, haunting delivery—the lyrics and the voice really bring the imagery to the track, whereas with so many of the other songs, the instrumentals were the star..."