Join us for KiNG MALA playing at Subterranean.
About KiNG MALA:
What would you give for a chance to be the most omnipotent version of yourself? To finally be rid of the petty human desires that keep you from achieving greatness? To finally have it all, everything you’ve ever wanted? What would you trade? What are you willing to lose? What would you do for power? These questions are at the core of KiNG MALA’s debut album, And You Who Drowned in the Grief of a Golden Thing. Across its wide-ranging 12 tracks – which seesaw between invigorating industrial pop and delicately refined R&B balladry – the singer-songwriter spins a tale as equally rooted in a sci-fi nightmare as it is in reality.
“That's what I think storytelling is for,” says KiNG MALA. “It’s a vehicle to say everything you want to say – but a plot and characters makes it so exciting. You go with them to discover what you need to discover.”
As KiNG MALA came to learn, And You Who Drowned in the Grief of a Golden Thing calls into question her own battle for power – and how far is too far to get it. Or, perhaps more importantly, if she had it all along. With the help of producer Dan Loumpouridis, she dissects such an idea through layers of metaphor, creating a rich sonic trifle with each bite more delectable than the last.
From the moment KiNG MALA started working on her debut album in December 2023, she knew she wanted it to be conceptually driven. “Let's do a week of sessions where we're just talking about what this album is and not trying to make music, I want it to mean something to me,’” she recalls telling Loumpouridis. His way of tapping into meaning was to pose the question that informed the entirety of her debut: “What are you interrogating?”
Growing up in El Paso, Texas, the artist born Areli Castro was homeschooled with “zero access to the internet” or social media until her late teens. Even moving to L.A. didn’t offer immediate connection, with KiNG MALA saying it took a couple of years to figure out what she wanted to be. KiNG MALA first formed as an alternative band in which she played bass – and then she met songwriter-producer Rob Auerbach. The two made her debut solo EP together, during which KiNG MALA realized, “I want to make pop.”
Breakout success came with 2022 single “cult leader,” which established KiNG MALA as a new and undeniable voice taking up space in the dark-pop realm. “I felt like I had been trying for a while to recreate that energy [of ‘cult leader’], but I had been attacking it from this angle of anger and retaliation,” says KiNG MALA. “I felt like my petty emotion, my reactiveness, my rage, was getting in the way of this person I wanted to be: this great powerful woman… I was finally like, ‘Oh, it's a possession story. It's a power struggle.”
And You Who Drowned in the Grief of a Golden Thing tells that story in all its gruesome glory – but, true to form, it’s done via two non-descript, fictionalized characters: a human and an entity. Following the classic storyline of a hero’s journey to redemption, the front half of the album is packed with the wonder of “what if.” What would an exchange for power look like? And more importantly, what would it sound like? (Think the experimental, living aesthetic of Bon Iver’s 22, A Million or Dijon';s Absolutely, she offers – but with more bite.)