Katrina Rees
Californian rhyme queen K.Flay has released her new single ‘Blood In The Cut’, taken from her new EP Crush Me, which is available now.
Fans of Fox show Scream Queens may already be familiar with ‘Blood In The Cut’. A snippet of the chorus was recently used in one of the promo videos for season 2, which premieres on September 20.
The moody and infectious track turns emotional damage into unexpected greatness. Speaking of the song, K.Flay (Kristine Flaherty) said: “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.”
The track is full of lyrics spiked with confessional barbs, but K.Flay never once loses her cool. Lines like “reading through your messages/my favourite way to die” slip right into the song’s stripped-down arrangement of bright beats and buzzsaw guitars, before you’re hit with its punchy chorus.
K.Flay is the first signing to Night Street/Interscope Records, an imprint helmed by Dan Reynolds, frontman of Imagine Dragons. With the release of her Crush Me EP, K.Flay embeds endless energy, head-turning lyricism, punk sensibilities and her hip-hop background into her gritty music.
As well as ‘Blood In The Cut’, the EP contains three additional songs. ‘Hollywood Forever’ is darkly charged, and 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”). ‘Dreamers’ has an air of melancholy to it as she owns up to feelings of loss and regret, as well as exploring the redemptive power of creativity. ‘You Felt Right’ is the EP’s most heartbreaking offering, with a lovesick, ripped-from-real-life storytelling. K.Flay also finds the time to throw in a self effacing dig – “I should have known don’t trust a poet, ‘cause they can’t do the math”.
K.Flay joined forces with Nashville-based producer/musician JT Daly, and LA based producer Simon Says for the making of her EP. It was written and recorded in a converted carriage house deep in the Tennessee countryside, and the results are exhilarating. There is no doubt that the EP will see K.Flay fulfil her promise as one of the US’ most exciting acts.
Along the way, K.Flay has garnered incredible support from numerous outlets.
A fascinating, complicated rhyme maven: anxious yet strong willed, simultaneously listless and driven, brilliantly literate but not too hifalutin to salute her favourite TV shows” – Dazed
“San Francisco’s K.Flay is the next big thing” – NME
“A musical maestro – producing beats, rapping, singing and playing guitar, keyboards, and drums”– Music Week
K.Flay is also making her way back to the UK to perform. Having supported PVRIS across the UK earlier this year, she will soon be returning to perform at Reading & Leeds Festival. She will also headline her own show in London’s Hoxton Bar and Kitchen.
TOUR DATES
August 26 – Reading Festival, Richfield Avenue (BBC 1Xtra Stage)
August 28 – Leeds Festival, Bramham Park (BBC 1Xtra Stage)
September 6 – London, Hoxton Bar & Kitchen
September 9 – Bestival, Robin Hill Country Park, Isle Of Wight
K.Flay’s Crush Me EP is available to download now.
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