e beginning was surreal,” she shares.
As ‘Escaper’ progresses, the album shifts from an escapist fantasy to a more grounded reality, exploring “what happens when you have to come back to the real world”. ‘Hollow’ slows things down with a mournful piano intro, while ‘Meaningless Names’ and ‘The Lonely’ paint portraits of loss with graceful lyricism. “What happens after the fantasy ends? What happens when we have to face death and grief and our own mortality?” Kinsley asks. “The answer is that we have to become our own escape routes. We have to find our own ways back to the light.”
For Kinsley, one of those routes has been musical expression. “Music has always been my way of making sense of the world,” she reflects. “I’m really grateful for it in that way.” She also finds peace in her own company, in thinking, in allowing herself time alone. “I think it’s important to have a relationship with yourself in the way you would have with someone else,” she says. “There’s so much power in being able to find tiny joys in things, and not always needing external validation or external things to feel a sense of purpose.”
This debut album, then, is both a statement of artistic intent and a personal triumph. “I’m really happy with how it all came together,” Kinsley says. “The beauty of song-making really comes from carving out space in the music. You’re constantly making decisions about how much noise to allow in, how much to take away, trying to put the right feelings into the music.”
As the interview draws to a close, Kinsley starts telling me about her new daily routine. “I’ve started running every morning,” she says, a sense of contentment in her voice. “It’s a new thing for me. It feels good to do something every day that’s just for me, that I can control, that makes me happy.”
Perhaps, in some small way, it’s another form of escapism. For Kinsley, though, it’s a reminder that she is the one in control of her own life, and that there is beauty to be found even in the everyday.
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