It’s an age-old story: Your parents mess you up, only for you to mess yourself up further by carrying the negative lessons they taught you into your adult relationships. And then you write a bunch of songs about it all.
Well, you do if you’re Nathalie King, the Toronto-based songstress who’s entered the homestretch of her own healing process on her liberating new single, “You.” With a stark, unvarnished beauty, the song captures perfectly the cascade of sometimes conflicting emotions that accompanies childhood trauma and its ensuing adult self-sabotage. Yet the recorded result isn’t cathartic just for King herself, but also for anyone who’s in need of a little auditory TLC.
Take this heart
Don’t wanna have it anymore
You taught me
How to build a wall
Can’t hurt no more
And I’m losing, losing myself
And I’m missing, missing ourselves
There’s a beast
under my skin
It’s raging, raging
If you look close
You’ll see it’s only hurting, only hurting
Hold me close
“You’ is about the innermost, softest and most vulnerable part of you, lying underneath the many thick layers we put on to protect ourselves in this world,” King explains. “It shows a deeper understanding of why people wear masks: Because they have been hurt by someone—maybe society itself—and so they shut away the gentle, beautiful, compassionate, soft part of them to protect themselves.”
And yes, she’s speaking of herself first and foremost. Just not exclusively.
“We all have done that in some capacity. The lyrics talk about closing my heart off because it has been hurt by someone in a relationship, the same way I was hurt by my parents as a child. But deep down, there is a wish to be loved underneath ‘the beast,’ which is a symbol of angry emotions coming out sometimes.”
The final piece in the puzzle, she says, is realizing that we’re in control of our own destiny: that we ourselves are “the programmer that can rewire our bad habits and trauma and create a better life for ourselves.
It’s hard to deny that message when its vessel is as compelling as “You,” a stately ballad with a piano part that drops like gently falling rain and an almost subliminal drum track (which is really the pedal of the piano) that gives plenty of breathing room to King’s nuanced and delicate vocal. The composition and arrangement coalesce to fully exploit the French Vietnamese/German-born King’s talents as a sultry, jazzy singer while nodding toward her fascination with electropop and trip-hop.
That fascination comes into full flower on her new EP, PTSD, a six-song statement of intent that, although recorded in Toronto, has a distinct UK-electronica flavor thanks to the influence of Bristol-born producer Joseph Snook. He’s proven an ideal companion on King’s musical/emotional journey, providing a smoothly flowing undercurrent to songs like “More” and Astra” that’s by turns soothing and unsettling as the subject matter requires.
“I decided it was time to write about my childhood trauma, as its struggles have accompanied me my whole life,” King says. “I felt ashamed to talk about it in public, or even to write songs about it. But as I have been healing in therapy and making steps toward a more healthy, mindful lifestyle, I felt it was time to make an entire EP about the past events, the past and present struggles and the light at the end of the tunnel. I am in a better place now, but the learning path is long and ongoing.”
Her professional path has certainly had more than its share of successes so far. With one full-length album, 2013’s Odyssey, and a bunch of follow-up singles like “Break Away” and “Ghost Rider” to her credit, she’s swiftly become both a fan favorite and a trusted resource for professional music supervisors, who have placed her songs in commercials and TV programs like ABC’s The Fosters, the European documentary Soul of the Ocean, Love Island Germany and Law & Order Toronto.
She’s on top of her visual presentation as well, having applied her honors B.A. in film and animation to producing and hand-animating her own music video for “Suckr for Love” in 2019. The video was screened at film festivals across the world, including the Berlin Music Video Awards and the St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival. The clip won Best Music Video at the Experimental, Dance & Music Film contest in Toronto, and was named a finalist in several other festivals.
As a live act, she’s become a reliable and cherished presence on the Toronto jazz and original-music scenes, all while maintaining a high profile in her native Germany with appearances at CMW, Indieweek and the Berlin Music Video Awards. In 2016, she placed as a semi-finalist at both Indieweek and the International Songwriting Competition.
She’s also plenty active outside the musical sphere, doing voice work for Canadian commercials and NBC TV, as well as a trailer writer/singer for 2 sync libraries – Universal Production mMusic UK and Molecular Sound in the UK.
For the immediate future, though, her main focus is on PTSD—both the condition and the record that now bears its name.
“I’d like to encourage the listener to experience the entire EP PTSD,” she says, “to fully understand the healing journey and to take an important message from it: That you are enough, and that every one of you brings something to the world that is unique.”
In other words, the phase she’s entering may be a milestone for her, but it’s really all about “You.”
