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His Voice Can Stop You in Your Tracks

The louche, dark-haired singer Loren Kramar has a confident, feline saunter onstage. The Angeleno can pitch his voice lower than Lou Reed’s, or project it like Fiona Apple’s.

At the Eckhaus Latta fall 2024 fashion show in February, he wowed the jaded crowd with covers of Lana Del Rey and Leonard Cohen, practically stealing the show in loose brown pants, a corduroy blazer and an insouciant boa that dragged behind him as he performed.

“He’s such a showman that any song would have been good,” said Zoe Latta, who co-founded the brand and has known Mr. Kramar for several years. “But at our rehearsal, he threw in ‘New York, New York,’ and we were flabbergasted.”

That afternoon Mr. Kramar thought the songs should be “a story of a painful struggle for belief, the process of believing,” adding, “We can personify it with New York.” He made many new fans among the editors, influencers and assorted famous people in the audience.

But at 36, he is far from an overnight success — or an ingénue.

Credit…JJ Geiger for The New York Times
Credit…JJ Geiger for The New York Times

Mr. Kramar’s first album, “Glovemaker,” comes out on April 26 on the independent label Secretly Canadian. Samantha Urbani, who works in A&R for the label, remembered hearing Mr. Kramar sing for the first time. “Everyone stopped in their tracks. ‘Who is this guy? Why is it so fully formed?’ His music is so classic and timeless but not pastiche and retro,” she said.

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