No type of creative output, across any platform, will ever justify just how miserable this year 2020 has been for so many of us. But there has been a growing sentiment among artists that unexpected inspiration has been found at a time when it truly feels inexistent. The latest entry into the mix, and onto our deep-night playlist, comes from Toronto-born singer, producer, and instrumentalist Kitsuna, who hits us today (July 22) with a slick alt-R&B tune called “Can I Love.” Listen to it below.
“The unusual thing about my new song ‘Can I Love’ is that it was created from a place that felt totally devoid of inspiration,” Kitsuna writes. “I felt so drained, like my vessel was bone-dry. To me, this song is the dregs that were stuck to the bottom of the bucket, which I painstakingly scraped off and shaped into a piece of music.”
The cascading track has a moon-lit thump to it, and a bit of that early Sam Sparro and Weeknd flair. But underneath the neon glow and polished sheen is an internal struggle, not only to create, but to deal with the forever-shrinking world around us. Kitsuna says the track “functions as an ode to one’s own loneliness and the unpleasant realization of being trapped within a cage of solitude.”
He adds: “The loneliness in this song is one formed from the belief that wisdom is enough to see you through this life, when really without love, however you define that, life is a battle you cannot win. I self-produced this song, created in the deep hours of the night. The track was really borne from that very unsettled place between the waking world and the dream world. Its musical landscape is made up of shadows with instrumentation that embodies illusions in the dark.”
It’s a mood.