On Songs From A Thousand Frames Of Mind, the kaleidoscopic full-length debut from Kate Bollinger, entire worlds lie in the small details. “When I’m recording a song,” the Charlottesville-born, Los Angeles-based songwriter observes, “my indication of whether it’s worth pursuing is if I’m seeing a movie in my head to go along with it.” Blending classic pop songcraft with scrappy punk instincts, Bollinger casts a collage-like vision that’s instantly memorable and uniquely mystifying. Ranging from homespun folk songs to warmly rendered psychedelic rock—like early Rolling Stones as fronted by Hope Sandoval—the resulting album can feel like flipping through your coolest friend’s record collection, finding a new favorite song with each discovery.

In order to summon this majestic blend of styles, Bollinger spent years cultivating material, challenging herself to work with new collaborators while moving across the country from her native Virginia to California. Evolving the hermetic approach of her early EPs and solo performances, she arrived at a fuller sound based on intuitive responses and in-the-moment energy. “I came to this realization that most of my favorite music is the result of friends, or players who have known each other a long time, coming together and playing live in the room,” she observes. Armed with endless hooks and wildly shifting textures, Bollinger can seem as much like a songwriter as an art-house auteur, crafting the soundtrack and scenery for a non-existent movie. (Fittingly, Bollinger studied film in college, and she also directed the striking music video for Jessica Pratt’s recent single “World on a String.”)

Written during a period of transience and change, Songs From A Thousand Frames Of Mind was made to resemble a mixtape—something carefully crafted and delivered from just one person to another. In sharing this music with listeners, Bollinger took inspiration from her own formative encounters with art: quietly worshiping the early musical projects of her older brothers, attending local shows in Charlottesville and feeling empowered to write songs of her own, inheriting burned CDs from older classmates and finding a portal to another world. (Working with her friends Emma Collins and Evangeline Neuhart on the visual accompaniment, Bollinger assures the entire project feels equally communal and intuitive.) Sublimating a lifetime’s worth of musical connections into a concise 11 songs, Songs From A Thousand Frames Of Mind captures a rare sense of purpose and ambition for a debut record, managing to feel cozily familiar while still packed full of surprises. And in her gently playful and emotionally resonant performances, Bollinger sounds as enraptured by the mystery as anyone.