KAINA: ‘It Was a Home’
There is a quiet rumbling to singer KAINA’s sophomore album, It Was a Home. The record follows her 2019 debut, Next to The Sun, and directly deals with being a first-gen kid trying to find their way in an uncertain and unforgiving world. It stirs and fits as though a sleeping giant on the cusp of a nightmare. Yet, beneath that veneer of implied hopelessness is a great deal of joy and playfulness. KAINA’s album, buoyed by her bulletproof voice and collaborative spirit, is a bright spot in a largely uneven year for music.
The album revolves around all types of love, and the process of discovering a wholeness within yourself. Illustrating this journey best are opener “Anybody Can Be in Love” and eleventh track “Friend of Mine.” The former tune asserts love is an infinite resource to bask in, and the latter song is a personal reckoning punctuated by the lines, “I would like to give myself as much as I give everyone else / Think twice, get my energy right… ‘Cause I’m a friend of mine.” One begets the other—and is emblematic of just how much sense the album makes.
Alongside this serious motif, however, is a childlike wonder. The song and accompanying video for “Apple” in particular is elastic. KAINA’s entire vocal range is on display, and the psychedelic overtones of the music video—punctuated by her band emerging as a group of puppets to watch KAINA on an old television set—emphasize the delight of rooting around in your mind. It Was a Home carries a lightness even as it confronts abject pain. The record floats by in 12 meticulously crafted tracks, each its own vessel to pour into and out from as the album fountains down to the listener.
It Was a Home followed a period of writer’s block, brought on by the active trauma of the pandemic. The existence of this album, then, is a triumph. It is a testament to KAINA’s purpose as a creative, as someone who exists, in part, to share themselves, but also as someone who is wise enough to know when to give themselves the precious resource of time.
“This project was healing because it was getting back to myself,” KAINA shared with me in March. “I felt so disconnected from myself in 2020, and disconnected from my life. This project was made after a year of not doing anything, sitting in my feelings, and giving myself more grace and patience than I thought I needed.”
In the last six months, It Was a Home has become, to me, a record of abundance. The album feels most concerned with accepting and embracing a flood of love and appreciation for the self, for the proverbial home, for the community, and all the other little things that help piece us together as a people. The album brims with hope and encouragement. It sounds like anchoring through your breath and finding strength on the exhale. It is an album built to endure the peaks and valleys of being alive, and as a result, It Was a Home is easy to live with—the album is, true to its content, a friend of mine.