I discovered Miami indie-pop trio, Kingslynn, earlier this year on NoiseTrade and immediately fell in love with their sound. With the ability to mix glowing synths with angelic vocals, needless to say, this band and I were a true match. Comprised of David A. Molina, Michael Alexander and his wife, Evelyn Grace, Kingslynn have influences that mirror our music collections – Kye Kye, Haerts, M83, St.Lucia and Tycho to name a few. We also can’t forget the big man upstairs, Jesus Christ, inspiring a large body of their work.
The band just released their second EP, Steady – a 5 track masterpiece that I’m convinced is what magic and fairy dust sound like. Just take the spine-chilling “Keeper” – the ultimate 80’s-esque track that slays with killer sax and glorious synths!
While sound is what we initially fall in love with when it comes to music, there’s always the other half of a song that’s equally as important: the story. We had the privilege of diving deep into the Steady EP with Kingslynn for an exclusive track-by-track commentary.
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YOUNG BRIDE
This song was influenced by Revelation 2:4 which refers to the church (bride) turning away from God. It is written from God’s perspective calling out to His bride to return.
The melodies and synths came pretty quickly. We usually record everything at our home studio. For this song we wanted live drums so we recorded them at a local studio. We ended up releasing it as a single but later, since the drums were not recorded properly, we felt that the it took away from the feel we wanted. So we ended up taking it down, re-recording and re-arranging several elements and releasing it on the EP. We are really happy with how it turned out.
TRANSCENDENT
This song came out of the ashes of another song that was not included on the EP. Evelyn was taking a class in college where the professor was questioning the existence of God and the nature of humanity. The song came out of her realizing that God is transcendent and that the only way we can understand the human condition is by embracing God’s existence and transcendence.
This was one of the earlier songs we wrote for the EP. Initially this song had a much darker tone, bigger drums and more theatrical feel. As we continued with the rest of the songs we came back to this song and realized it didn’t fit with the rest. So we ended up completely re-working the song. With this new re-work, the drums had a very dry sound. Eric Owyoung, the audio magician who mixed the song, gave the drums a much bigger and reverby sound which we ended up loving.
KEEPER
David shared with the band the story of God’s covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15. One of the things that struck us is how dark and creepy the story feels when you read it. It gives us goosebumps every time we read it. We love this story because it shows how God is sovereign and intervened in providing the perfect sacrifice we couldn’t provide to keep His promises, hence the title “Keeper.”
Throughout the whole process of the arrangement we always felt there was something missing. One day David was playing around and came up with the synth line in the instrumental part and sent it to Michael and Evelyn which they ended up loving. This seemed to be the breakthrough towards completion of the song. After this, in working out the outro we were joking around about adding a sax solo at the end. We ended up trying it with sampled sax and we loved it but it had to be a real sax so we were fortunate to have Ilia Skibinsky record that amazing sax solo.
INSIDE MY MIND
This song is about God being more than just a thought in your mind but actually letting God take root in your heart. In addition, this song talks a lot about how fragile we are physically and spiritually. It’s inspired by the book of Ecclesiastes.
We think this one has the most unique feel compared to the other songs. We were trying to find a good hook for the chorus melody and Michael surprised us by coming up with the background vocals for the chorus which he sings in the recording.
One thing we like doing is mixing Michael’s bass with a synth bass which is what we did towards the end of the song.
STEADY
Steady is a journey through the moment of death and into eternity with Christ for us as Christians. No one can escape death and considering this is a very anticipated and emotional moment for a believer we felt we wanted less lyrics and allow the music to take you through that journey from death to life.
When the instrumental part begins you hear a radio-like voice speaking. That was Michael narrating 1 Thessalonian 4:13-18. This was one of the last elements we added. It wasn’t really intentional. David came up with the idea but we weren’t completely convinced until we recorded it.
The string section was actually from the same song we mentioned in “Transcendent.” As we were writing the lyrics and melody to “Steady,” we realized that this string section would fit in perfectly, and it did.
Typically, we’ll go back and forth sending each other recordings of melodies and music and then meet up with further song. This is the first song that we completely wrote together in the same room which we thought worked really well for us.
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Steady is available now here.
