Today, KAYE announces her new album Conscious Control due out on November 20, 2020, her most intimate and vulnerable collection yet. Lead single and album opener “Earthrise,” out today, serves as an origin story that introduces the key themes of the record—change catalyzed by loss, uncomfortable self-confrontation, and choosing oneself even if it inconveniences others. In the record, one finds KAYE opening her raw nerves and exposing wounds for the world to see, making sense of the injuries for herself in real time.
Says KAYE: “In the span of just a couple weeks, I had left my romantic relationship, I had left San Fermin, and I left New York thinking I was going to move to LA. I felt like I was floating in space, looking at this explosion from afar, grieving intensely but also excited about what was next.”
Whereas many of her previous music videos feature multiple outfits and dance sequences, this is the most stark, simple and vulnerable video she has ever done. The video was shot in one take, and features her singing “Deep into the void, waiting to begin” as she spins around—almost as if a planet in this new, expansive universe. The negative space reflects all she has given up, and paves the way for new life ahead to begin.
KAYE directed the video herself, which was shot in Brooklyn over the summer. “I knew that the most vulnerable thing to do was just to tell the story with nothing else around me. Toward the end of the first take, I started crying while singing the last chorus, unplanned. Everyone was like—well, we don’t need another one. That was the only take we did.”
KAYE is the musical moniker of Charlene Kaye, former frontwoman of indie darlings San Fermin, who relaunched her solo project last year to accolades spanning NPR, Rolling Stone, FLOOD and more. Each release propelled her singular creative vision while magnifying her electric frontwoman energy. She recently released acclaimed single (and epic self-made stop motion video!) “What A Time To Be Alive” — an electro-punk shock to the system that offers tongue-in-cheek yet unflinching commentary on police brutality, racism in America and the new normal of living in a global pandemic.
