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Providing personable glimpses into music.

CREATIVE CONVERSATIONS 145: KYARA ON HER NEW SINGLE, INTO THE DARK

Interview by Adeline Chai.

FMM: Hey KYARA! How have you been doing since we last spoke?

KYARA: Hey! I've been good! I've been busy, just, you know, trying to hustle and get the next release done, which is obviously the one that's just come out, but it's been great.

I've been doing well. It's just very surreal still to actually have my music out there and be working on campaigns behind the scenes while trying to be a creative director behind everything, too, so it's been good. How have you been?

FMM: I've been good! I was so excited to finally listen to Into The Dark, I think it’s so beautiful. It also feels a bit different from Yearn as well. What was the inspiration behind this song in particular? 

KYARA: Yeah, it is a bit different to Yearn! Yearn comes across as a bit more of a confident, fun, sexy vibe, but Into The Dark is a lot more personal. It was inspired by real-life events and relationships. So lyrically, it's coming from something personal. But sonically, I was just always really attracted to the synth-wave sound and at the time that I was writing it, I must have been watching a lot of Stranger Things. So it definitely has a bit of that vibe. But yeah, that's where it came from inspiration-wise – relationships – and sonically, from the stuff I was watching.

FMM: It’s interesting you say that. I feel like every single track you make does feel like a soundtrack. I just love that you get inspired by other media too. I was wondering, colour scheme-wise, I personally associate Yearn with red, and Into The Dark feels a bit more like purple. Is that intentional?

KYARA: It is! Yes, so well, when I wrote Yearn, I definitely had a red in mind when I was thinking about it visually, and whenever I listen to my songs back, I close my eyes and actually think about the feelings that they bring up in myself, and I would associate a feeling with a certain colour. Since Yearn definitely had that sexy and confident vibe, I thought it went well with the red. Then with Into The Dark, it has that futuristic synth-wave sound so with that in mind, and the darkness surrounding the actual song, I just instantly thought blues and purples. I was initially leaning towards blue but I started tilting more towards a bit of a purple.

So yeah, it was intentional. I think about it with my friend Deanna, who always helps me with my creative thoughts. We sat together and planned out the visuals, and she helped me do my videography and photography. So we organise that together. Even now, while we're working on a video and it’s a visualiser for Into The Dark, we're still thinking about certain parts. If we should be changing up some colours. But yeah, it's intentional, for sure.

FMM: You’ve been receiving amazing reviews on Yearn, congratulations on that – they’re so, so well deserved. I wanted to know, since it’s a more vulnerable song, do you at any point feel hesitant about opening up to such a wide audience?

KYARA: So, funny story. I actually wrote Into The Dark years ago. I wrote it during the second COVID lockdown. I produced it then and everything too, so I've had it sitting there for a really long time, and that was the time that I was going through this relationship that the song came from. The person who I was with actually heard it after I wrote it and loved it. It came from a bit of that relationship, but a bit of the one before that too. I didn't really tell him that it was about that one as well [laughs]. But yeah, anyway, I was hesitant to release it. Into The Dark is a really special song to me, and I wasn't sure if it was something that I wanted to come right out of the gate with, which is why I wasn’t going to bring that out as my debut single.

I think I was hesitant because it was quite personal, and I knew that a lot of people I knew would know where it came from, but it's definitely been enough time now that I'm well and truly comfortable with sharing the song. It's just life. It's a relationship that didn't work out. But yeah, I was struggling between being hesitant because it was personal but also really wanting everyone to hear it because I was so proud of it. Into The Dark was one of the first songs that I produced that I was just so proud of. I just thought it was quite elaborate, and it just flowed so well. I wrote and produced it in a day, and I remember being like, “Oh, my gosh! I slayed that!” When I listened back, I was like, “I'm so proud of this.” That's exactly how I heard it in my head.

FMM: That’s so interesting. I didn't know about that timeline but Into The Dark just fits so well with Yearn as well. You have this sound that's so distinctly yours.

KYARA: I never marketed Yearn as a synth-wave track. It was very much just an electronic-pop track to me but when I shared it with a few different people and outlets and got reviews back, they would dub it as a synthwave track as well. I was like, “Oh, wow!” It was actually nice to hear that because I have quite a few songs with that same synth-wave sound and it's good to know that it's consistent to other people as well. So yeah, I'm happy that the sonic branding is consistent and identifiable with myself. So that's good. But thank you, I'm so glad that you noticed that, and that you feel that way as well.

FMM: Into The Dark is so much also about finding a light within yourself after not having necessarily someone or something to hold on to. I know you do a lot of things yourself, you do all the writing, and producing on your own. I wanted to know, was there anything that you were in the dark about almost, or that you're still struggling to walk out of, as an artist?

KYARA: Oh yeah, 100%. Even when I'm producing, I still feel like I'm questioning myself. There are certain things that just end up turning out really good, and then other things where it's not quite working, and I'm not sure if it's something that I need to improve on, or if I want to pick someone else's brain, someone who is a bit more experienced in the field to help me bring a certain sound or a certain concept to life. So I definitely still feel with my production that I'm kind of on a journey of understanding what I'm doing. It’s constantly evolving. Even the software is always evolving, too, so I'm still updating my own knowledge and experience along with the software as it updates, but yeah, with production, I definitely still feel like I'm certainly not perfect but yeah, I'm doing my best.

Also, I'll definitely say, with regards to the creative stuff like the photography and videography side of things, I haven't used any external videographers or photographers as of yet. With my first and this current release, I've been working on everything with my best friend, so we've just been carrying through it together and it worked out pretty well. I was very proud of it with Into The Dark – visually the photos turned out really well and the videos so far are going well, but we were doing a few shoots over the last couple of evenings, and we were on a bit of a time crunch because we knew it was going to be raining for the next few days, so we were trying to get things done, and we had a few outdoor shoots to do.

It was not working out. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong went wrong – we would be getting somewhere, and then it would sprinkle. Then it would stop and it would sprinkle again. I was like, “Look, we're going to have to do it, rain, hail or shine, but the lighting and other things just weren’t working. So we're going to have to do it again and hope that it comes together in time well within the timeline that I wanted to follow. It may be a delayed video release, but that's fine, too. It’s a fun project. I'm definitely still feeling like I'm in the dark trying to figure out how to navigate a lot of things.

FMM: That was an incredible answer. The rapport that you have with your best friend is so important – when you're working with someone who knows you so well, you have that safety net to bounce back and forth, which makes an amazing working relationship. 

KYARA: It’s so important to have that. I mean, I think that having her support is one of the reasons why I ended up just ripping the bandaid off and releasing all of these songs that I've been holding onto for quite a while. Yearn was one that I wrote pretty fast, so that was quite fresh at the time, but knowing that I have the support of someone who's willing to help me with the creative stuff and the stuff outside of the actual music – that really helped. She’s got a great eye for anything creative. She’s very skilled with fashion, and design, and she's got a good eye, but she's very critical as well, so she'll be honest. Luckily, she's generally very positive with my stuff but if there's ever anything that I could improve on or something that she thinks could be done better. She'll always say it and yes, we definitely communicate well with each other.

Also, I was going to say, just to add to your previous question about being in the dark with certain things, I still haven't done too many collaborations with other creators so that's something that I'm still working on – I’m trying to get my vision across while compromising with someone else's as well, it's still something I'm navigating and learning how to do. It’s great that I get to learn that with someone so close to me and that I'm comfortable with, but it's definitely something I'm going to have to be ready for in the future because I'm definitely gonna want to collaborate with other artists or even other producers one day. If I were to use a studio and have someone else recording me, I would need to be able to communicate with them and work with someone else in that respect, and I'll have to learn how to relinquish control a little bit because I'm used to having all the control with everything. So yeah, I'm having that partnership with my friend at the moment and it’s great to have her creatively.

FMM: That’s amazing! Do you have a dream collaboration?

KYARA: Oh, my gosh! I've always loved The 1975, I think sonically. I love their music. I don't know if it would necessarily go with my current sonic branding, but I think that it could evolve into something like that. I'd love to collaborate with someone like that, even if it was just writing something together, I wouldn't even have to be on the track but I'd love to see their process. Also, you know who I really love. I love BLEACHERS. I just love all of their music. So good. They’re also quite cinematic to me, too, but in a completely different way to the stuff that I make. When I listen to BLEACHERS, I feel like I'm in a romantic montage.

FMM: With songs like Me Before You, it feels like you're in a romcom.

KYARA: Yes! Me Before You is probably going to be number one on my Spotify. It’s so good. I'm so happy that you like that song. That’s elite taste.

I was going to say, sonically, I've actually had someone review Into The Dark and say it had a very The Weeknd-esque sound. I think that doing something with someone like that might be cool. I think I would work really well with many people. I'm loving Charli XCX this year, so she'd be amazing!

FMM: I can’t wait for those collabs to happen! Into The Dark feels like your sound but it definitely seems to have some influences without taking away from that. Do you have a favourite lyric from the song?

KYARA: Thank you! Oh yes, I do. It’s the first verse. The lyric is, “You always said that we would never break. But what about today?,” which I’ve literally taken verbatim from something that this person said to me. I remember it was more like a situationship, where we were very close and spent a lot of time together, and it felt very romantically intense. I was being led to believe it was going to turn into something, and I  was much younger at the time, but at some point, I had the confidence to ask this person what was gonna happen, where we were going, that sort of thing. And he gave me some sort of BS response of like, ‘Oh, you know, everything's really great right now, like what's really great about what we have is that because it's not official, we'll never lose what we've got.’ And I was like, “Okay. Makes sense.” I just kind of went with it at the time but I ended up pulling away from that relationship. So that was fine. But he was just like, “We’ll never break what we have. We'll never lose.” Then fast forward a couple of months, we’re just not in each other's lives anymore. It was like it never happened.

And looking back at that relationship at the time, I think that's what I wrote this song mostly about. It was just like, “You’re just suddenly gone.” We had all of these very emotionally intimate moments together, and I don't understand how you can just turn it off like nothing ever happened, and I would look back at all the times we had together, and feel like this was a ghost. This wasn't a real person. They’ve just vanished. So all these moments are shared with someone who no longer exists in my experience. So that's my favourite lyric, I think, because it's reflective of like, “This is what you said, but look at us today.”

FMM: Something I absolutely love about Into The Dark, is that it echoes everything you just said, when people make an exit out of your life, everything feels so instant. It’s very jarring that one day you could be in a romantic relationship or even a friendship with someone, and on a random Thursday, they might decide that they don’t want anything to do with you anymore, and just like that they’re not into your life. Then all that’s left of you is the constant spiralling of, “What do I even do now?”

KYARA: Exactly. Sonically, as well, I produced it to make it sound very end of the worldish and it feels like someone is just spiralling. I remember I felt like I was going through a lot of – not just with this one person – relationships or friendships ending, then just having to go about my life like nothing happened.

I remember spiralling constantly with all these questions like, “How can you do that?” In some of those cases, I was actually doing okay with moving on, but not a day would go by where I wouldn't still be thinking about this person. I would start questioning myself and think, “Am I special? Am I not special enough to make you want to stay?”

It sounds so so sad but yeah, it's very end of the world-ish, and I think, listening to it, I at least feel that sort of anguish. In the bridge it pulls back, it's a bit more whispery and echoey, and it kind of feels lonely. That’s reflective of that same feeling where you're just left with yourself in these echoes of the past and you just have to somehow move on and carry it with you, hoping that one day you're gonna not feel anything bad about it anymore. It’ll just be there, and you'll be more nonchalant about it.

FMM: What kind of message do you want people to take away from Into The Dark?

KYARA: Hmm! That is a good question. I definitely don't want them to think they'll never get over it because they will, but I want them to hear it and know that they're not alone in thinking that.

I want people to hear it and know that other people have experienced questioning themselves and feeling like, maybe they're not as important to other people as they thought that they were. As they hope that they will be. That doesn't mean that they don't matter, they still do – it’s just some people are shitty, and some experiences are just crap and this is what it is. But yeah, it's normal to have these little moments where you're spiralling with all these questions and it's okay to let yourself feel how you feel if someone's treated you like less than you are or less than you deserve. So yeah, I want them to know that it's okay to feel that way. It’s probably better to let yourself feel it than to suppress it.

Yeah so, they're not alone in feeling that way, I'm gonna say that, and that they will get through it if they maybe let themselves have their moment where they spiral and feel it completely. 

FMM: Just bask in those feelings, and we’ll get over them eventually.

KYARA: Yeah, exactly! When I was going through all of this stuff, it felt like a few series of different relationships or friendships just wouldn't work out and I was constantly spiralling about the same questions, just in relation to another person, I was like, “Am I the problem?”, but there were times where I had ended things. I didn't start moving past all of it until I just let myself feel it. When I became constantly busy in my life and kept everything moving, it was just piling up to the point where I just couldn't function. So I was like, I have to let myself feel this and deal with it and heal from it, and once I did, I let myself break down. That was the beginning of a better chapter.

FMM: I think that’s so important – to let yourself be sad. I really feel that in your songs, and I love your work because it’s almost the physical manifestation of feeling your feelings.

KYARA: Thank you. That's really sweet. I'm really happy that someone engages with my song and actually feels that journey along with it. So that's that means so much. Thank you and like I said before, it's [Into The Dark] such a different song from my first one, Yearn, which is a lot more fun and cheeky, but this one is a bit more raw and real, and still sonically cool. I love it as a song. But yeah, I think you guys can expect more personal, reflective songs to come after this one. 

FMM: I’m so excited KYARA for you! It’s been such a joy to watch you expand your artistry.

KYARA: That’s so sweet. Thank you, I'm so excited to chat with you about it in the future. I'm so appreciative to talk to you today and to have you engage in my music, actually take something from it and enjoy it. So thank you so much.






Brooklyn Gibbs