Maren Morris feels "very distanced" from country music

Decorated country singer Maren Morris says she needs a break from the genre.

• In an interview with the Los Angeles Times this month, Morris reflected on taking a "step back" from the Music Row ecosystem.

Flashback: Last year, Morris floated the idea of not attending the CMA Awards following a dispute with Jason Aldean and his wife Brittany.

She tells the LA Times she's avoiding "stories going on within country music right now."

• "I feel very, very distanced from it."

What she's saying: "The way I grew up was so wrapped in country music, and the way I write songs is very lyrically structured in the Nashville way of doing things. But I think I needed to purposely focus on just making good music and not so much on how we'll market it. The last few records, that's always been in the back of my mind: Will this work in the country music universe?"

• "Obviously, being one of the few women that had any success on country radio, everything you do is looked at under a microscope. You're scrutinized more than your male peers, even when you're doing well."
• "So I've had to clear all of that out of my head this year and just write songs. A lot of the drama within the community, I've chosen to step outside out of it."

The intrigue: Morris' two-track EP "The Bridge" came out Friday, with two songs written a day apart. The accompanying videos show an artist tending a garden that sends out vines to attack her.

• In "The Tree," she strikes a match to presumably burn down the abandoned city's "family tree," only to "realize it's burning itself down without any of my help," she wrote on Instagram.
• In "Get the Hell Out of Here," ashes blanket the town. The imagery is obvious: Maren is burned out, but we know from Greek mythology to expect a phoenix rising.