“We were kind of on a little cliffhanger of my own life.” K.FLAY candidly admits when opening up about her diagnosis with Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss. It came out of nowhere, and for a moment she questioned if she was ever going to be able to make music again. But she found the eagerness inside of her to become more curious, more open, and more experimental, and in-turn she created her brilliant fifth studio album, “MONO” (out now).

The 14 track collection feels like a new beginning for the Californian based singer, songwriter, and producer. In some ways it feels like a second debut album as it takes everything she’s learnt up to this point and finds a new perspective. It’s dark and brooding, whilst also manages to find a hopefulness amongst the confusion. And in-turn it’s become this beautiful reflection of a turbulent time in her life.

I sat down with K.FLAY ahead of the album release to discuss the beautiful contrast of emotions that “MONO” embodies, reflect on the creative processes behind songs like “Are You Serious?”, “Spaghetti”, “Bar Soap” and “Chaos Is Love”, and find some parallels on this record with her earlier material. Check out the full chat BELOW;

THOMAS BLEACH: The last couple of times we’ve spoken I’ve asked you about the main emotion that was inspiring the body of work we were discussing. For “Solutions” you said it was love and happiness, and for “Inside Voices” you said it was a search for catharsis. So for “MONO” was the main emotion you’d say was inspiring you within this body of work?

K.FLAY: The instinct of a feral animal… *laughs*. No, but in all seriousness, that’s somewhat true. I think the record has a feeling of toughness and personal strength. That was a part of me physically making this record, but really a part of the journey of this last year of my life was really looking discomfort and loss in the eyes and generating power by really being able to withstand that, grow from it, and become more curious, more open, and more experimental in the face of it.

TB: There’s a darkness on this record similar to “Every Where Is Some Where”, while there is also an experimentation similar to “Life As A Dog”, with a little bit of hope sprinkled in from “Solutions”. Would you say this record feels a bit like a direct response to those records thematically and sonically? Because it feels like a new chapter opening, and almost another debut album for you?

K: I’ve been saying a lot at the moment that I’m like a born-again musician. This does feel like a debut record to me, and it genuinely felt like a debut record to make it. What’s really beautiful about a first record is that you don’t know what you don’t know, and there’s so much creativity in that lack of self-consciousness. And I think as a creative person that no matter where you are in your career, you’re always trying to create that state again of, “what do I do when no one’s looking?”, and usually that’s the most interesting stuff. 

With this being my fifth studio record, I had a strange and unexpected opportunity to feel like a beginner again, and to really release myself from certain expectations because I was like, “I went deaf in my ear, I don’t even give a fuck anymore”. Not that I don’t give a fuck, as I care deeply about what I do, but I can’t be out here worrying about whether this person’s gonna like this or this. I need to like it. It needs to be my taste. And I need to try to push myself. And that was really my headspace. 

TB: Was there a moment when all that happened where you were like, “Am I gonna make music again?”

K: Right in the beginning when I was still pretty physically sick, I was just discombobulated on every level. And there was a moment when both my manager and I were like, “Am I going to make music still, or what’s going to happen?”. We were kind of on a little cliffhanger of my own life. In retrospect I did a really smart thing where I did this specialised treatment for people with serious wounds and for people who have what I have, which is called sudden sensorineural hearing loss. And they found that for some people it can help. And basically it’s going into this hyperbaric-like NASA chamber that’s in the basement of the UCLA Medical Center. And they simulate being 60 feet underwater. They put your head in a helmet and they give you 100 percent oxygen for three hours, and you have to go every day. It’s crazy. And there are people in there who just had an amputation, and it’s all walks of life. It’s kind of like the TV show Lost. I had to do that for a month, and if it was going to work, it was going to work, which it didn’t. But right when that ended I set up a studio session as I just wanted to see how it would feel, and I went in with a producer named Jeff Harris, who I worked on three of the album tracks with. I got in, and I was like “Jeff, I don’t even know what’s going to happen, but I just felt like you would be a really good person to be with”. 

I had this little idea for a riff, so I played him that chromatic bassline that ended up being the first song on the record, “Are You Serious?”. I didn’t know what to write about and Jeff encouraged me to write about exactly what had just happened. He’s like, “have you written about it?”, and I was like, “no, dude. I’ve been in a chamber in the basement of UCLA, and then driving to and from UCLA, and I couldn’t even drive for the first part because of my vertigo”. So he was like, “I really think you should just write about what happened”. So I did, and we ended up doing some really interesting and unconventional things in that intro song that made me realise I can do this. And partially because my hearing was so strange at that time and my brain was still in a really early stage of adjustment, I was just going on instinct. And that’s why the feral animal note is a little bit how I felt. I’m like a wolf who has walked a hundred miles by themselves and ends up in the middle of Los Angeles. And it’s like, “wait, what? I gotta find food out here?”.

TB: What I loved about “Are You Serious?” was the very visual lyrics along with the production elements, especially the pressure ringing, and the rapid pace building that feels like an anxiety attack. How important was it for you to have the listener feel like they were living that morning and that moment with you as the opening of this record? 

K: I think it was very important to have that sense of mounting anxiety and pressure. Everyone knows what that feels like as we all have those moments in our lives. But I obviously situate it within my specific experience, which was important for me I think in terms of this record and telling a story to put the listener a little bit on the edge right off the bat. 

I hope what that does is encourages the listener to want to hear more of what’s going to happen, and ultimately the journey of the record. And particularly, the last four or five years of my life have been a really beautiful journey of encountering tension, encountering pain, and not doing some dumb shit, and sitting with it and really having the courage to actually sit with it and endure it. The final track, “Perfectly Alone” is really for me that whole feeling of that battle in one song.

TB: “Spaghetti” is one of the clear standout moments on this track with the infectious production, and the honest lyricism. Can you explain the creative process behind this particular track?

K: This song probably has the best story of the record. This was maybe a week after I did “Are You Serious?”. I  asked my girlfriend, who is also a musician, to work on something in my studio for fun. I was trying to get my bearings back and feel comfortable even tracking vocals because it was still feeling pretty weird at that time. And we had also never written a song together before. So we went into my back house and I produced the demo, and we wrote the song. It has both of our vocals on it, and we just recorded it really quickly. And then I kind of forgot about it.

I had asked Paul Meaney, who’s a producer, to executive produce the record, and one of the things he had me do was send him everything I’d made from this particular point in time, up until right now. So I included “Spaghetti” in that batch of songs, not really thinking about it. And he came back with his pitch for what should be on the record, and he was like “Spaghetti” must be on the record. I was like, “no way, dude. That was just us fucking around” and he’s like “no, that’s what’s great about it”. 

One of the things I really value in my girlfriend and our relationship is there’s a real sense of levity to it. There’s a depth, but we’re both pretty down to laugh at the state of affairs when possible. And to me that levity and that playfulness is kind of encoded into the DNA of the song. And the vocals that are on the final version are what we recorded in my studio on that initial day. 

It has that homegrown feeling to it, and I also think that whenever you’re just having fun with someone you love, it feels good. And somehow that was captured in that song. 

TB: The lyric – “Life is what you make it, well that’s the worst advice I ever got. Life gives me spaghetti, I tie it into knots” is genuinely one of the record’s best lyrical moments.

K: It is that playfulness with language. I feel like we’ve talked about this before, but so much of the delight of songwriting for me is playfulness. And I feel like there’s some moments of that on this record, and “Spaghetti” being one of them where I was really able to lean into that.

TB: I mean, you did also rhyme divorce with horse on this song and I feel like that deserves a special shoutout.

K: *Laughs* thank you! By the way, all these lyrics were just completely a freestyle stream of consciousness. 

TB: It’s funny you say that as “Spaghetti” honestly reminds me of “Life As A Dog” and even “So fast So Maybe”. 

K: Absolutely! Well it was made with purity in a garage, so I think that makes total sense it would evoke that era in a beautiful way.

TB: “Bar Soap” feels a bit like the slightly cynical but current sister to “Good News” with lyrics like “the only thing that is real, is right now”. Do you see any parallels with these two songs? 

K: I do see parallels in the sense that I think both of those songs are about me seeking to reorient my perspective. With “Good News” it’s like, how do I find hope? How do I find love in a hopeless place – to quote one of our greats. And I think with “Bar Soap”, it’s like, why am I thinking about tomorrow? Like yesterday and tomorrow don’t exist. The only thing that is happening right now is this interview. Everything else is made up. 

I worked on that song with Dave Hammer who used to be based in Sydney, and he produced four songs on the record, and I think he and I both struggle with the anxious thoughts and the magical thinking of the future and the past. Sometimes with my music, it’s a chance for me to tap myself on the head and be like “look over there”. So I definitely see what you’re saying in that as I think they’re both an effort to reorient on my part. 

TB: “Chaos Is Love” feels like a nostalgic leaning K.FLAY track with the production and the songwriting. The whole concept of a toxic relationship and being told “chaos is love” is a wake-up call. What does this song make you feel now when you hear it back?

K: I love this song. I think it makes me feel great tenderness toward my younger self, and just tenderness for all the people that I’ve loved and known, and all the people who find themselves in stages of a relationship like this with a notion of chaos and urgency and obsession or mania. They are such strong feelings, and I think when you’re inside of them it’s difficult to understand how they can be damaging, and ultimately like illusory. 

What I loved about making this song was that the chorus feels really celebratory and almost euphoric, even though it’s a song about a relationship that ends. I hope there’s something bittersweet about it because that’s how it feels to me. I didn’t want to just write “you broke my heart and I’m sad”. That’s fine, and I’ve done that before, but I think I like the idea of breakup songs feeling as complex as they honestly usually are. You never just feel one type of way about it. 

TB: I also just think that phrase “chaos is love” is so interesting and kind of ignited something in my brain when I heard it for the first time.

K: When somebody isn’t necessarily treating you super carefully, that can be exciting. You kind of like it and crave it. But after a while, you can only throw the egg on the sidewalk so many times. 

TB: Now lastly, we know you love tattoos, and every time we chat I ask you this question too. So if you were to get a tattoo to represent “MONO”, if you haven’t got one already, what would it be?

K: I’ve got it! I got “MONO” tattooed last week to celebrate the record. It’s on my “good side” because the constant question is, “wait, which ear?”. And I just go *points to tattoo*, talk to me on this side. I got it with one of my best friends. He co-wrote “Hustler” with me.

“MONO “ is out now!