Trip-Hop, Electro Artist Nathalie King Branches Out by Looking Inward in New Single “You”
It’s an age-old story: Your parents mess you up, only for you to mess yourself up further by carrying the negative lessons they taught you into your adult relationships. And then you write a bunch of songs about it all.
Well, you do if you’re Nathalie King, the Toronto-based songstress who’s entered the homestretch of her own healing process on her liberating new single, “You.” With a stark, unvarnished beauty, the song captures perfectly the cascade of sometimes conflicting emotions that accompany childhood trauma and its ensuing adult self-sabotage. Yet the recorded result isn’t cathartic just for King herself, but also for anyone who’s in need of a little auditory TLC.
Take this heart
Don’t wanna have it anymore
You taught me
How to build a wall
Can’t hurt no more
And I’m losing, losing myself
And I’m missing, missing ourselves
There’s a beast
under my skin
It’s raging, raging
If you look close
You’ll see it’s only hurting, only hurting
Hold me close
“You’ is about the innermost, softest and most vulnerable part of you, lying underneath the many thick layers we put on to protect ourselves in this world,” King explains. “It shows a deeper understanding of why people wear masks: Because they have been hurt by someone—maybe society itself—and so they shut away the gentle, beautiful, compassionate, soft part of them to protect themselves.”
And yes, she’s speaking of herself first and foremost. Just not exclusively.
“We all have done that in some capacity. The lyrics talk about closing my heart off because it has been hurt by someone in a relationship, the same way I was hurt by my parents as a child. But deep down, there is a wish to be loved underneath ‘the beast,’ which is a symbol of angry emotions coming out sometimes.”
The final piece in the puzzle, she says, is realizing that we’re in control of our own destiny: that we ourselves are “the programmer that can rewire our bad habits and trauma and create a better life for ourselves.”
It’s hard to deny that message when its vessel is as compelling as “You,” a stately ballad with a piano part that drops like gently falling rain and an almost subliminal drum track (which is really the pedal of the piano) that gives plenty of breathing room to King’s nuanced and delicate vocal. The composition and arrangement coalesce to fully exploit the French Vietnamese/German-born King’s talents as a sultry, jazzy singer while nodding toward her fascination with electropop and trip-hop.
That fascination comes into full flower on her new EP, PTSD, a six-song statement of intent that, although recorded in Toronto, has a distinct UK-electronica flavor thanks to the influence of Bristol-born producer Joseph Snook. He’s proven an ideal companion on King’s musical/emotional journey, providing a smoothly flowing undercurrent to songs like “More” and Astra” that’s by turns soothing and unsettling as the subject matter requires.
“I decided it was time to write about my childhood trauma, as its struggles have accompanied me my whole life,” King says. “I felt ashamed to talk about it in public, or even to write songs about it. But as I have been healing in therapy and making steps toward a more healthy, mindful lifestyle, I felt it was time to make an entire EP about the past events, the past and present struggles and the light at the end of the tunnel. I am in a better place now, but the learning path is long and ongoing.”
Her professional path has certainly had more than its share of successes so far. With one full-length album, 2013’s Odyssey, and a bunch of follow-up singles like “Break Away” and “Ghost Rider” to her credit, she’s swiftly become both a fan favorite and a trusted resource for professional music supervisors, who have placed her songs in commercials and TV programs like ABC’s The Fosters, the European documentary Soul of the Ocean, Love Island Germany and Law & Order Toronto.
She’s on top of her visual presentation as well, having applied her honors B.A. in film and animation to producing and hand-animating her own music video for “Suckr for Love” in 2019. The video was screened at film festivals across the world, including the Berlin Music Video Awards and the St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival. The clip won Best Music Video at the Experimental, Dance & Music Film contest in Toronto, and was named a finalist in several other festivals.
As a live act, she’s become a reliable and cherished presence on the Toronto jazz and original-music scenes, all while maintaining a high profile in her native Germany with appearances at CMW, Indieweek and the Berlin Music Video Awards. In 2016, she placed as a semi-finalist at both Indieweek and the International Songwriting Competition.
She’s also plenty active outside the musical sphere, doing voice work for Canadian commercials and NBC TV, as well as a trailer writer/singer for 2 sync libraries – Universal Production mMusic UK and Molecular Sound in the UK.
For the immediate future, though, her main focus is on PTSD—both the condition and the record that now bears its name.
“I’d like to encourage the listener to experience the entire EP PTSD,” she says, “to fully understand the healing journey and to take an important message from it: That you are enough, and that every one of you brings something to the world that is unique.”
In other words, the phase she’s entering may be a milestone for her, but it’s really all about “You.”
Hi, Nathalie! Good to meet you! Care to introduce yourself to the readers?
Hi, thanks for having me! I’m Nathalie King, I was born and grew up in Germany, to Franco-Vietnamese and German parents. Since I was a child I always loved creating arts and crafts, making music, singing, and being very sporty. My studies include filmmaking, animation, and acting and I now live in Toronto, working in the visual audio field where I get to create all day long. I’m really blessed I get to do what I love most. Besides writing my own music I also started getting hired for commercial voice work and writing/singing trailer music for sync libraries for TV and film.
“You” addresses deeply personal themes of childhood trauma and self-sabotage. What inspired you to write this song, and how does it reflect your own healing journey?
My own life experiences inspire me to write songs. I discovered that writing music is a healing vessel for me, to work through my emotions and to calm myself down when I am in a state of negative emotional overwhelm. I overcame a shit ton in my life that was a physiological and psychological manifestation of my childhood trauma, like my eczema that I was suffering from almost my entire life, OCD, tic disorders, depression and anxiety, learning boundaries, self-worth. I’m proud of how far I have come. And I always felt deeply embarrassed and ashamed of talking about my childhood trauma and bullying to anyone. But as mental health awareness rises and I’m on a good healing path, I decided it was time to speak up and write an EP about what I went through. And I named it fittingly ‘PTSD’. The track ‘You’ addresses the many layers we put on in order to protect our inner selves. Whether that layer is defensiveness, pride, or ego, those things form from bad experiences we’ve had because we don’t want to get hurt again. And they can be so unhealthy and destructive in present and future close relationships with ourselves and others. Unless we become aware of and work on it. And even then it’s a lifelong healing journey. Fixing takes time.
“You” features a delicate blend of piano, subtle drums, and nuanced vocals. Can you talk about the creative process behind the arrangement of this song?
From the entire EP, this song took the longest to develop and underwent many different melodies, productions, and lyrics until we decided to just keep it simple on piano and vocals. There are no drums on this track, what you hear is probably the piano pedal haha This way it would represent the fragile nature of the inner self and the sadness of the result of carrying layers that don’t serve us. The line “there’s a beast under my skin, it’s raging. If you look close you’ll see, it’s only hurting, hurting” describes how when we get angry in certain situations it might just be an overreaction rooted in trauma and underneath that anger lies sadness and helplessness because we feel hurt but don’t know how to calmly deal with that situation because we haven’t learned the right tools- yet.
You’ve collaborated with Bristol-born producer Joseph Snook, who helped shape the sound of your EP PTSD. How did his influence contribute to the UK-electronica flavor on the record?
I’m so glad that I met Joe through another artist friend of mine and that we got to work on this entire EP together. Because it was hard for me to find a producer in Toronto who gets me and my style. Trip-hop is more commonly listened to in the UK than in Canada and I was after a unique blend of electronica/trip-hop and something atmospherical and haunting. I’m really happy with how the overall sound of ‘PTSD’ turned out.
Your background in film and animation has been part of your artistic expression, as seen in your hand-animated music video for “Suckr for Love.” How do visuals play a role in telling the story of your songs like “You”?
I find I love both working in the audio and visual field. I find myself needing a break from music when I’ve been writing for weeks on end and then I just want to create a graphic design, do a paper cutout, or work on a short film/ stop motion project. And after I’ve done that for a while I have the urge to get back into music. I think I’ll always keep working on both. I love tapping into the emotions of my music because I always see visuals when I compose. That’s why I need to take creative direction for music videos and graphics. I believe I can strengthen the musical experience with visuals because I always like to send a strong message in my storytelling. For “You” I’m currently still working on the stop motion music video. It’s a tedious project because I have to cut about 2600 frames by hand by myself. I hope it’ll be done in December or earlier.