“San Francisco’s K.Flay is the next big thing” – NME
Californian rhyme queen K.Flay has announced her new single ‘Blood In The Cut’, to be taken from her brand new 4-track EP ‘Crush Me’, out now via Interscope/Polydor Records.
The moody and infectious lead single turns emotional damage into unexpected greatness. The lyrics are spiked with confessional barbs, but K.Flay never loses her cool, and lines like “reading through your messages/my favorite way to die”, slip right into the song’s stripped–down arrangement of bright beats and guitars.
“The song is about the desire to inundate yourself with pain or angst or noise or joy, or really any experience, in order to have ownership of the feeling. Though it emerged from a dark place, the song quickly morphed into a celebratory thing, which was surprising and cool for me. It kind of felt like I was enacting the song as I wrote it” – K.Flay
Newly announced as the first signing to Night Street/Interscope Records (an imprint helmed by Imagine Dragons’ frontman, Dan Reynolds), K.Flay instills endless energy into a collection of songs highlighting her seamless flow and head–turning lyricism. While ‘Crush Me’ builds off K.Flay’s hip–hop background, the EP also channels her punk sensibilities and DIY spirit into a lush but gritty sound rooted in live drums and guitar.
The darkly charged ‘Hollywood Forever’ matches K.Flay’s commentary on the toxic nature of fame with her own personal revelations (“my father was a user and I’m afraid I’m just the same”). One of Crush Me’s most melancholy moments, ‘Dreamers’ owns up to feelings of loss and regret, but explores the redemptive power of creativity. Also, on the hazy and quietly heartbreaking ‘You Felt Right’, K.Flay offsets her lovesick, ripped–from–real–life storytelling with the occasional self–effacing dig – “I should have known don’t trust a poet, ‘cause they can’t do the math”.
Upon graduating, Flaherty moved from LA to San Francisco and kept up with music, making her breakthrough with the 2011 mixtape Stopped Caring in ’96 and soon landed a deal with a major label. Not long after putting out her 2013 EP What If It Is, K.Flay launched her own label for the release of her debut album ‘Life As A Dog’.
In making ‘Crush Me’, K.Flay joined forces with Nashville–based producer/musician JT Daly, and LA based producer Simon Says, writing and recording in a converted carriage house deep in the Tennessee countryside. The results are exhilarating, and see K.Flay fulfil her promise as one of the USs most exciting artists.
TOURED WITH*: Snoop Dogg, Awolnation and Passion Pit
LOOK OUT*: For her in Bestival, Reading & Leeds Festivals
To listen to the track, click the link below.
