Kyla Tilley – Bloom and Grow (2022)
Known as a natural storyteller, singer-songwriter Kyla Tilley regales her audiences with musical tales of, well, almost anything. Inspired by life in its entirety, Tilley’s guitar picking and smooth vocals shower listeners in a kaleidoscopic haze. A classically trained guitarist, this Canada-based artist draws together the intimacy of Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez in her sound. The latest release on her well-received discography is ‘Bloom and Grow’.
Her first single of 2022, ‘Bloom and Grow’ follows the flowing track ‘Swimsuit & Axe’. While both embrace a folk sound, ‘Bloom and Grow’ adopts a more upbeat, high-paced quality to the typical old-school folk design. From the opening, Tilley ensnares your senses sending you adrift on a glistening river of sound. Yet, while there is a smoothness to the track, the obscure arrangement adds a few tumultuous waves to the sonic river.
Combining steady drums with an acoustic guitar, Kyla Tilley fills your soul with a soft old-school folk style. Yet, just as there is a smoothness within the melody, the ever-changing pace of the instrumentation makes the track eclectic and innovative. Add Tilley’s dulcet tones and you have a Joni Mitchell meets Janis Ian style creating an otherworldly ambience in its cinematic soundscape.
The melody can intrigue you and captivate your mind as it is, but Tilley showcases her depth as a songwriter in ‘Bloom and Grow’. Able to write songs from bees and birds to post-apocalyptic films, ‘Bloom and Grow’ is another brick in her inventive wall. Penned during Canada’s first lockdown, the single touches on feelings of fear, regret, anxiety and worry; however, it does not look at how these issues affect one negatively but how they can spur a person to “live the way they want to live”. Tilley explains that the track’s overtones “hint at how uncomfortable change and failure can be while the finger-style guitar and lyrics remind us that change and failure is what allows us to bloom and grow.”
For more from Kyla Tilley check out her official website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Spotify.
