Kindelan embarks on an ambitious double single project

“Wish I Wrote A Love Song”, which opens with a simple guitar line before mutating into a synth-ridden minimalist production, finds Kindelan worshiping the early, light, breezy days of a relationship where expectations are low and the joy is all encompassing. Kindelan’s R&B-styled vocal line sizzles throughout the track as the instrumentation builds before diminishing to the original acoustic lick, signalling the potential end of the honeymoon phase as reality begins to set in.

“Cigarettes”, in contrast, captures the confusion and mayhem as the relationship begins to fall in upon itself, and what once fuelled the couple is no longer enough to keep, or perhaps worth fighting for enough, to keep things on track. Compared to “Wish I Wrote A Love Song”, “Cigarettes” feels more organic, as the heavily distorted guitar is swapped out for a more lived-in drum line and piano motif, capturing Kindelan’s heartbeat as she processes how what once seemed so idyllic, has fallen apart so quickly.

Produced alongside regular collaborator Ed Allen, Kindelan’s finger-plucked guitar stylings stand out across both tracks, a natural progression 2023’s you can reach me if you try EP. ““Wish I Wrote A Love Song” started with the chorus lyrics which go ‘I wish I’d wrote a love song last November/I wish I’d written it down so I remember’ and when I first wrote them I had a near allergic reaction to the song because I didn’t want to feel that way and got too scared to event attempt to finish the song because it was the first time I’d admitted I wasn’t happy in the relationship and that the good part of it had passed,” Kindelan explains.

“The writing process was pretty torturous because I definitely made myself sit down to write it because I’d never ever been pulled to write a love song before and the reason I hadn’t was because I didn’t feel comfortable documenting those really beautiful emotions; so by the time those weren’t the emotions anymore I’d forgotten what they truly felt like."

“When these songs were recorded, it started off the way most of my songs do, with me recording the demo in my room, just me and my guitar, before working on them with Ed. We recorded the drums for this track the day after you can reach me if you try came out and then added loads of guitars, piano, and I sat with the songs and added tens of hundreds of vocal layers to make my voice like a synth, like its own instrument. I think the voice can create such drama with the different textures and airiness, and you can make it light and heavy depending on what the track needs."

“The lyric for me that really breaks my heart is in the first chorus, it goes ‘I wish I’d wrote a love song last November/I wish I’d written it down so I remember/being the form you’d seen becoming someone you needed’,” she continues, “Everyone starts off as strangers, as faces you’ve seen, forms you’ve seen, silhouettes in the sun, and going from being that to someone that they needed to back to a silhouette, every time I sing that line it makes me feel many things…many things."

As well as both tracks encompassing two sides of the same coin, the same can be said of their interconnected music videos, co-directed with Whiting Visuals, which came from the line ‘playing house in the basement’ from “Wish I Wrote A Love Song”.

“I decided to embody this and physically build a ‘perfect home’, with everything in its perfect place, in the artwork and music video,” Kindelan explains, “This neat, tidy and cared for space is intended to directly reflect the love it houses. This same space is then weathered and destroyed, with candles burnt down, flowers dried, wine spilt, and books ripped, to directly reflect the neglect and disregard for this same love at the end of the story.”