Okay Kaya shares a mind-altering video for ‘Jolene From Her Own Perspective,’ the new single from her upcoming world-building album, SAP, out November 4th on Jagjaguwar. The track finds Kaya Wilkins imagining Dolly Parton’s nemesis responding to her song: “I can’t believe we’re arguing about some man. That’s so silly. In fact, I’d rather talk about you and me.”
Wilkins calls the song “a love note from a depraved bisexual, haha just kidding. No, it’s Jolene as a queer anthem. Except it’s not a cover, it is a new tune. As the title declares: Jolene from her own perspective. Dolly forever”
The video acts as a companion to the previously released video for the album’s lead single ‘Spinal Tap,’. Both videos were made in collaboration with acclaimed visual artist Austin Lee and demonstrate Lee and Wilkins playful and unique studio exchange. The laborious process took months to complete and involved virtual reality renderings inspired by Kaya’s drawings and complex story building between the two artists.
SAP, which was entirely written, engineered, and produced by Wilkins, is a concept album about consciousness in which Okay Kaya focuses her trademark combination of abstraction and wit on what happens to her mind unaccompanied, on her tendency to feel less like a human and more like the sticky secretion of a tree. It conjures a world of sticky-membraned creatures reminiscent of the characters in old Gumby cartoons, but wet and glistening. “My writing process often begins with images in lieu of words. What if you’re tree-juice? How far along the stem do you have to ride before you get away from your parents and realize you’re the tear of this person and the blood of this person?” Kaya says. “I see a vision in my mind’s eye and take it from there. Austin has such a profound visual sensibility. Together, we translated many of my drawings. They became a wonderful invitation into his world. We developed this mascot, SAP, an alternate version of self.”
After releasing her Spellemann Award winning album Watch This Liquid Pour Itself in January of 2020, Kaya left her home in New York and moved to Europe to create and show her various interdisciplinary exhibitions. Among others, she made an installation that amplified music made underwater and an interactive sculpture based on Jungian sandplay therapy for children. Between her art exhibitions and museum performances, Kaya recorded through lockdowns by herself in the loaned studios of generous friends. The album was further inspired by Ketamine Therapy. As she experimented with ego death, Kaya found herself writing in the voices of fictional characters she’d encountered in other people’s stories. Okay Kaya’s investigations of mind-body come along with seductive dance beats, unpredictable interlocking synths, delicate soft guitars, and close-to-the-mike R&B whispering. But Kaya likes her falsettos cracking and her soul-inspired hooks careening wildly, a beautiful chaos that somehow fits together. When she returned to New York, Kaya was excited to collaborate again, to get friends to “bless the record.” She invited friends to Gaia Studios in Greenpoint, Brooklyn to sing or play an instrument. Most songs on the album unfold with guest performances from varied artists including Nick Hakim, deem spencer, Taja Cheek of L’Rain, Adam Green of The Moldy Peaches, Farao, Zannie, Aerial East, Michael Wolever, Franziska Aigner, Toniann Fernandez, Moist Paula, LEYA, Stix, Starchild, The New Romantic, Ydegirl, Iris Taborsky-Tasa and Eli Keszler. Just as the recording process began with isolation and ended with friends, SAP starts with the internal and leads outside to romance, to lovers who serve as funhouse mirrors, reflecting Kaya back to herself from different angles.
1. Mood into Object Personified
2. Jolene From Her Own Perspective
3. Origin Story
4. Jazzercise
5. Pathologically Yours
6. Spinal Tap
7. Inside of a Plum
8. Rorschach
9. In Regards to Your Tweet
10. Dep. Chamber
11. Pearl Gurl
12. The Lesson
13. I’ve Spent Forever Planning A Crisis
14. Like a Liver
15. Weltschmerz
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