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Thanya Iyer — KIND Review

KIND reminds us we are always a collective together and should choose to do better: not only for ourselves but for those around us.

What are genres anymore? It’s not uncommon to find about eight different genres over the course of an album these days. On KIND, Thanya Iyer, the Montreal singer/violinist, doesn’t seem to massively care what genre the album is either. It’s closest to pop, jazz, and folk but you could probably add 15 “genres” to the list without fully covering it. KIND creates a space all of its own and, in its multitudes, acts as an interval in which the listener can breathe, analyse, and reflect. Its cleverness and inventiveness cannot be understated. As a listener, it’s rare we can join the band’s journey and reflect simultaneously. Each track has deep singular sentiment to great results but the album works even better as one breathtaking discussion, which is vital and empowering.

Album opener ‘I Woke Up (In the Water)’ opens with the sounds of crickets and other creatures and continues with some classically folk sounds and twanging violin, which progress disjointedly until a closing harmony. It’s an introduction to the more bizarre elements throughout the record, with nature’s hum in the background and the brief central moments akin to alien spaceships preparing for takeoff. It lulls us into a setting of a-bit-weird folk before ‘I Forget to Drink Water’ veers slightly in a different direction. More jazz inspired, it flecks and agonises, the song as unbalanced as a body suffering from a lack of water. Thanya wants to find something in her muse, something that’s just for her, but her equilibrium is unsustained and as focus shifts to herself, she knows that something is off-kilter. Musically, we are knocked off balance too until a calm wave of soothing yet challenging “oohs” and “aahs” create an empathetic and observational mood as the song draws to a close.

The album changes pace again with ‘My Mind Keeps Running’: a strong two minutes of organised mess, mirroring a mind weighed down by overthinking as a change is setting in. Too many instruments and effects to comment on, the song feels like something manic bubbling under the surface. As with any exploration of the self, there will likely be panic somewhere along the journey. The track stands out as a peak of experimentation and is likely to be the track you’ll want to be stood a little further away from the speaker for. In ‘Please Don’t Hold Me Hostage for Who I Am, For Who I Was’ Thanya “makes the choice to get better” after the strain she was feeling in the previous track. It is a song of about six parts, starting with a poppier foot tapping opening section, focusing on Thanya’s sharp uplifting vocals and a bouncy soundscape. Thanya accepts that in “life there are highs and lows” at which point the song momentarily drops into a bluesy rhythm, before being poured all over with jarring busy vocables and a calming yet freeing outro. The track ultimately encourages us to stop and listen, to learn from mistakes and be willing to accept our faults, a vital reminder in how to be an ally in dismantling systems of oppression and racism.     

‘Look Up to the Light’ is full of scatty blips, reminiscent of a quickening heartbeat, woven with indecisive vocals, blasts of brass, muted strings and light piano. The message here is to back yourself and get outside to see the world. In its confusion, the song acts as a last barrier in taking “a chance on yourself.” In ‘Bring Back That Which Is Kind to You’, Thanya takes that chance on herself and makes it outside, heading out on what feels like a gentle summer walk. The tone shifts to a relaxed confidence. The R&B inspired slow jam is unadulterated joy, yet also almost feels like a guided meditation, with Iyer now our guide. ‘Into the Water’ keeps a similar tempo and rhythm with haunting echoing vocals. The summer walk of the previous track has brought us now to a lake, where the voices in our head are persuading us to take a dip, to push ourselves and take risks, to be reborn.

‘Alien’ splits into two sections, three minutes of meditative and oft-confusing sounds, ultimately mixed with a hovering vocal that soaks us in calm. The ‘Alien’ in the song is uncomfortable in their own skin, feeling out of place, seeking lessons in how to fit in. The second half of the song changes pace, a calming vocal fades into an almost screech and a tribal drum unsettles. The closing seventy seconds or so of pressure may be there to expose us to how it feels to be an alien; but perhaps they exist to suggest that the idea of changing your alien nature to fit in is itself chaotic. 

KIND is an album with nuances and melodies so effectual that the experimental collection of brass, string, flute and electronics manage to interlock, never sounding too busy even in the most challenging flurries. We acknowledge Thanya’s own struggles, rebirth, and dismantling of her preconceptions of identity and we consider our answers to the really big questions the album asks us. Closing track ‘Always, Be Together’ offers a powerful closure to the journey we’ve all taken, its strength underpinned by Iyer’s torch-bearing positivity and the resolve to dismantle a world of hate and oppression through kindness and human connections. KIND reminds us we are always a collective together and should choose to do better: not only for ourselves but for those around us.