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. 

The album follows the classic storyline of a hero’s journey to redemption, focusing on two non-descript, fictionalized characters: a human and an all-mighty entity. The front half 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.) 

The back half of the project provides answers – and it’s not pretty. By the story’s end, the human not only lacks power, but everything that made then human as well. “It's what we become, because the real dark shit that happens to women, you are never the same,” KiNG Mala shares.

And at a time when the world is embracing such left-of-center storytelling, KiNG MALA is primed to emerge at the forefront of dark-pop’s new wave. “Everyone's being weird as fuck right now,” she says, citing world-building artists like Charli xcx and Chappell Roan and movies like The Substance. “We're moving into this space where we can be fucking freaks and finally be angry and disgusting – it's all manifesting.”