Okay Kaya's "Damn, Gravity" is an XL-approved melancholic heart-stopper

01 April 2015, 09:45 | Written by George O'Brien

(Tracks)

(Okay Kaya)

Some things are born out of the unexpected, blooming from an unlikely source into something beautiful: caterpillar to butterfly, bulb to flower. In the case of Kaya aka Okay Kaya, she's bloomed from a member of her brother's black metal group to the creator of a heart-wrenching and melancholic guitar ballad.

The New Jersey-born singer-songwriter left the US behind in favour of Oslo, and her Scandinavian surroundings pour out of this new offering. A gently crunching, reverberating guitar provides the bed for a honey-like vocal to gently manoeuvre its way through the autobiographical account.

Kaya explains: "I wrote it during my year long breakup with this boy of a man who kept bringing me down. So I thought it would be funny to call out gravity..."

Funny, maybe. Thoughtful, provocative, sultry? Entirely.

The track was produced by Rodaidh McDonald, aligning the newcomer with the likes of King Krule, Sampha and The xx.

Streaming below as our Song Of The Day and released on the XL-distributed Hot Charity, float away with Okay Kaya. “Damn, Gravity” is so much more than just okay.