WATCH / SHARE “BACH TO THE FUTURE” HERE
KYLA CHARTER’S DEBUT ALBUM, EDIBLE FLOWERS, OUT TODAY
BUY / STREAM EDIBLE FLOWERS HERE
Photo Credit : Noelia Ruiz // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
Today, Kyla Charter releases her debut album, Edible Flowers. Having lent her voice to the backgrounds of tracks and performances from July Talk, Alessia Cara, and Zaki Ibrahim, to Rich Aucoin and Patrick Watson, the LP marks her first official step to the forefront.
For the album, Charter teamed up production team Safe Spaceship (Chino De Villa (Jessie Reyez, Justin Nozuka, Charlotte Day Wilson), Scott McCannell (Claire Davis, Aphrose) and Ben MacDonald), to bring her unique brand of soulful vocals to her astonishing debut album.
In celebration of release day, Charter is sharing the new video for album track “Bach To The Future” from animator Alkarim Jadavji. The song was a “turning point for me and the first song I finished with my producers in Safe SpaceShip for this project,” says Charter. “We had been working on a few songs prior to this one that had more traditional song structures, but I’d brought this little guitar idea to the guys (you can hear me playing it mid-song during the breakdown) and they ran with it into the night!”
“The vocals on this song were really special for me because it wasn’t about capturing the greatest vocal performance, it was about capturing where I was in that moment, I didn’t do a second take or try and make it prettier or more consumable, and that set the president for the rest of the record. Edible Flowers became a voyeuristic look into my internal world, which honestly was a bit scary. I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to take up as little space as possible, in many ways it’s expected of me as a black woman in society; but through the pandemic I’ve had the space to get to know myself and the multitudes that I contain and I’m so grateful to have been able to capture some of that with Bach and the record as a whole.
“Bach to the Future” is a tilt of the hat to Yohann Sebastain who's cello suites/arpeggiated lines were inspiration for the bass lines that run throughout the song (played by Scott McCannell). Chino Devilla put so much work into the aesthetics of the sound and is playing drums and percussion, and Ben MacDonald played those incredible trippy Synth lines.”
WATCH / SHARE “BACH TO THE FUTURE” HERE
MORE ABOUT EDIBLE FLOWERS
Following album opener “Doubts”, “Bach To The Future” is a further amalgamation of Jazz, Soul, and Hip-Hop all melting together into a truly original blend that is idiosyncratic and a direct sonic manifestation of Kyla’s creativity.
The tempo steps down and hits a mellow stride on “Hey Mama” a slow jam laced with sharp snares, crunchy drums, distant keys and an angelic falsetto. Each track on Edible Flowers is emotive and infused with individuality that gives it a life of its own. Rarely do the tracks stay still, expanding and contorting with bridges, extensions, distortions, sonic glitches and effects to further bring you into the experience. “Breaking Dishes” boasts some of the LP's most experimental choices with beautifully ominous vocals and an altered drum break that pops in and out of time.
LISTEN / SHARE “DOUBTS” HERE
Written in the heat of summer 2020, Charter along with her team of producers Safe SpaceShip sought to capture a series of vignettes that served as a way of processing the times.
“I truly could not focus on anything” the songwriter recounts, “I couldn’t watch movies, follow storylines, listen to new music, nothing. I was so overwhelmed by the world that I could only focus on one thought at a time. My songwriting process is usually having the seed of an idea and building it outwards. For this record, and in working with Safe Spaceship, I was able to do away with traditional song structures… to get really avante with it, haha!”
WATCH / SHARE “QWYN” HERE
Kyla’s talents are evident in every aspect of her album, with production exclusively handled by Safe Spaceship and Charter herself, each track displaying its own dynamic sound. “Qwyn”'s soft somber tone is juxtaposed against the more Neo-Soul influenced “The After Party” further detailing the extent of the songwriter’s musical range. The human voice is used most as an instrument on the album closer “Another Name”, with just hand claps and humming as the bed for lyrics of grief and mourning. Edible Flowers is truly a breath of fresh air, aglow with creativity, originality and vision.
BUY / STREAM EDIBLE FLOWERS HERE
MORE ABOUT KYLA CHARTER
A graduate of Humber College Jazz and Contemporary Music Program for Vocal Performance, Kyla was invited to sing with July Talk at Field Trip Festival by her good friend James Baley. The performance was the beginning of a beautiful working relationship and the start of her professional career. Over the years Kyla has lent her vocals to artists that include Alessia Cara, Zaki Ibrahim, Rich Aucoin, and most recently Patrick Watson. After singing together for a CBC First Play Live session in the fall of 2019, Patrick invited Kyla to accompany him on a last minute trip to Paris to play France Inter, and subsequently to open for him on the European leg of his tour for 2019’s Wave.
The tour began in February of 2020 and was cut short by COVID-19 but the singer was excited to come home and continue working on her first album. As restrictions eased in the summer of 2020 Kyla began working full force on her first body of work.
