Any adult who’s dealt with mental health issues can likely relate to pining for the innocence of childhood — typically a simpler time that’s free from weight-of-the-world-on-your-shoulders problems and having to navigate life’s harsher aspects.
Adelaide-born, Sydney-based singer-songwriter and producer Kyle Charles Hall, who releases music under the abbreviation KCH, knows this feeling all too well, capturing it perfectly on “these days”, the second single from his upcoming second EP my head is a jungle in a deforestation way.
The track marries stellar production full of dopamine-hit surprises — left-field samples of crickets chirping and a TV sports commentator, Disneyland-visit-on-Xanax strings, and kids’ choir-style vocal snippets — with dark lyrics about depressive ruts (“I miss when I was a little kid / he never judged me like I did”). The resulting juxtaposition gives “these days” its appealing and unique sonic identity — an incredibly sweet song about rather sour times.
“I wrote ‘these days’ at a time where I was facing some rather grim mental health challenges,” says Hall. “I find writing about the depths of your problems is such a great form of therapy and this song definitely got me out of the house — if you know what I mean. I often feel like life, particularly in your mid-twenties, is a constant battle of you versus you, and at this particular time, the other me was winning.
“The mood of the track is quite boppy and generally just makes me feel good — I really enjoy the contrast. The lyric ‘my head is a jungle in a deforestation way’ has made its way to the EP title, which I rather enjoy. I feel it really captures the cyclical nature of mental health and how even at my lowest moments, I am able to make a bit of a joke about it as I know that the valley is temporary.”
Hall started his music career as the lead singer of Adelaide band Runaway Weekend, whose 2016 debut EP Deja Vu was followed by a national tour supporting Chase Atlantic, a fortuitous pairing that led to the band selling out multiple dates on a headline tour.
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Post-Runaway Weekend, Hall has been re-introducing himself to listeners as a solo artist with an arsenal of anthemic pop songs (he’s clocked an impressive 330,000-plus streams across eight songs), with “these days” one of the first tracks he self-produced and mixed.
“It took me a long time to trust my ears and not doubt when I felt that something sounded good,” he says. “Learning how to make music, you’re often told that there is a ‘right way’ to do things, however through this process I realised that only you can make that judgement call. That’s what makes the whole music thing so fun, because you can literally do whatever you want.
The track was recorded in his bedroom at the time, located in his ex-partner’s family home. A slightly out of tune upright piano at the house wound up making its way onto the song.
“It was cool to finally record some real piano rather than MIDI, and I like how the slight detune of the piano gives the track a wobbly feeling,” he says. “You could say the piano was out of tune in all the right places.”
Hall may sing “these days I hardly know myself,” but “these days” bears the mark of a self-aware artist who’s found his own quirky lane in pop, creating what he calls “a soundtrack to your life like you’re living within a Nineties or Noughties coming of age film,” the goal to capture “the ephemeral feeling of an endless summer steeped in nostalgia.”
With the sweet, sad, humorous and hopeful “these days”, Hall has nailed the brief, making the anticipated December release of EP my head is a jungle in a deforestation way one to mark in the calendar.
KCH’s “these days” is out now.
