Claire Morales Releases Lost in the Desert and Charts Her Psychedelic Odyssey

There's something poetic about an artist who once sang in high school physics class, who now crafts sonic landscapes that bend genres like light through a prism. Denton singer-songwriter Claire Morales has traveled far from those early acoustic coffee shop performances, evolving into a visionary who spins worlds that are "equal parts visual and sonic," as she puts it.

Her new album Lost in the Desert drops digitally today. It's not just a collection of songs, it’s a full-fledged odyssey, each note and lyric mapping the shifting terrain of self-discovery. Alongside the music comes a graphic novella, an imaginative world rendered in dreamy visuals and retro colors.
Growing up in North Texas, Morales’ sound has transformed in tandem with her life, evolving as she does as a person.

“I think a part of it is just getting older and finding your voice a little bit and the people who get it and are creatively compatible,” she reflects. Those days playing stripped-down folk have given way to a sound much richer—and more daring.

“When I was younger, I wanted to write, I wanted to create, but I maybe didn't have the thing to say just yet. And then after you have some experiences, it kind of evolves the tone and the vibe and the genre,” Morales says.

On Lost in the Desert, that evolution is immediate: “bright poppy bursts, ominous psychedelic swells, roaring rock and roll moments and quiet lulls of folky introspection.” Morales and her band refuse to stay in one lane, their music stretching to fit every emotional bend in the road.

Take “YVB”—a song that feels both dangerous and Western, evoking the drama of a desert noir.
“This album is very much a desert album,” she says. “It was super informed by the time I spent in the desert, both on tour and just on solo trips and just being in Joshua Tree, really.”

The edge of adventure, equal parts lure and warning, runs throughout the record: “You want your life to change. You want something exciting to happen, but it can be kind of a curse, too, in a way, to live in exciting times.”

Morales credits North Texas, and especially Denton, as an advantage for nurturing her sound.

“I think Denton is a little bit desolate. There’s not a ton of natural beauty. There are not a million things to do all the time,” she says. “It’s a good place to create because there’s not always a lot else to do.”

That creative quiet breeds innovation; sometimes, the best inspiration is a little boredom. But it’s also about community. Lost in the Desert is as much a testament to Denton’s collaborative spirit as it is to Morales’ vision. Guitarist Alex Hastings not only played but also produced and engineered the album at his studio, Mockingbird Sound. Other local fixtures like Jeffrey Barnes of Brave Combo and violinist Leoncarlo Canlas appear throughout.

“While the project is under my name, it’s very much a team effort,” Morales says. “Living in a place so rich with talented and creative people makes it so much easier to do what we do.”

What sets Morales apart is her devotion to dynamic storytelling. She lets the story drive the genre and mood, shaping the album into an emotional journey.

“I always try to let the story drive the tone and genre. I don’t worry too much about it, is it rock, is it psychedelic, is it folk? I try to just tell a story and use the tone of the song to support the story itself.”

This storytelling runs deep in “Angel in the Ether,” which shifts from guitar-driven psychedelia into swirling, chant-like atmospheres.

“I picture this as the song of people talking about this legend. I wanted it to just feel very of a legend.”

Morales’ songs rise and fall with thoughtful dynamics: “If everything’s at a 10, it’s kind of like nothing is... If you looked at it like a song topographically, it would be up and down and not like a flat line.” That lesson, she notes, comes from her guitarist father—a reminder to let every moment breathe.

Morales considers the graphic novella portion of the project not an add-on but a vital piece of her universe.

“I feel like [drawing and music] have always been pretty linked for me, and it kind of feels like expressing the same thing in different mediums.”

The visual element emerged organically during the pandemic.

“Some of these illustrations started around the pandemic. I think I was just like, 'Oh, I've got some time.' And then, it just kept going.”

Its retro aesthetic, full of “warm desert tones and psychedelic curves,” came naturally. “It wasn’t something that I really thought about. It was more like, here it is,” she says. This world, both visual and sonic, creates a journey “where the heroine begins” and transforms, traversing inner and outer deserts.
To capture that energy, much of Lost in the Desert was recorded live.

“We tried to do as much as we could live with the band so that it had that feeling,” Morales notes. But some of the album’s most magical moments came in the space that followed. “Time was an ingredient in this album... I think some of the unexpected moments came from getting to listen to it and contemplate and go, like, 'what could we add?'... ‘Let’s call someone who can play the flute’... ‘What if we added a crazy string section here?’”

Morales’ album offers both escape and confrontation: “an invitation to ask the questions that are tempting to avoid.”

Ultimately, she finds power in the act of creation.

“We live in a culture where it’s easy to feel powerless and there are all these evils in the world. I’ve just found that expressing these things and making art with it helps me to feel better.”

And it’s not just for her. “If there’s one thing that I want people to take away, it’s that they have this power and strength, and we don’t have to take life as it comes. We can stand up against it and try to make the world a better place and share what we have in our heart.”

That belief threads through every song and every drawing—a reminder that creative resistance is itself an answer to despair.

From the student who once made key lime pie in physics class to the artist crafting multimedia odysseys, Morales has traveled her own desert path of transformation. "I'm pretty happy with how things have turned out. It's not like this big fame, name up in lights, but I'm really happy with my community and all the cool artists that I get to work with."

What would her high school self think of the artist she’s become? “I hope she would be proud.”

Surprising herself, letting life flow—these are the victories Morales claims. In her hands, getting lost becomes a way to find something deeper. Claire Morales will perform on Thursday, Sept. 25, at 7 p.m. at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studio, 411 E. Sycamore St., Denton. Tickets for the record-release concert are $10.