Kyla's Blog

New Year January 10, 2021

I wanted to do a little 2020 recap to start the year off. I wasn’t able to go on tour or play any live shows, but thanks to the magic of the internet I have met more people and musicians than ever this year! It took me until December to realize there were open mics on zoom, but I found them and participated in a New Years Eve party that lasted 16 hours and involved musicians from all over the globe. I started writing songs on a twitch show that I did daily throughout the year and I’ve made a whole bunch of new friends through Twitter, Instagram, and events arranged by some of the music associations I belong to. I started working with a coach to help me move my music career forward, I released an EP and I’m currently working on my second full length album. I played through almost the entirety of the Yakuza video game franchise released in the West and I wrote about 30 new songs.

At some point in the summer me and my husband determined that there was no way our lives in Montreal were going back to normal anytime soon, and that it would probably be a year or more before it was safe to use our rehearsal space, so we made the decision to return to Newfoundland. I would never have been able to record, or participate in late night open mics in our apartment in Montreal. It was a huge life change I had no idea I would ever make, but I’m glad we did it. I look forward to telling young folks about the time I needed to present express written permission from The Government of Newfoundland & Labrador in order to board a plane to fly in from another province.

So much for the recap. On to 2021!

Personally, I have a lot of goals that I’ll be working towards this year. First and foremost is the recording and releasing of the album. I have 12 songs I plan to record. They all have something to do with self-worth, acceptance, striving for greatness, the search for immortality, personal growth, and things that drive us. There are also a few songs about the obstacles that hinder us. Most of the songs were written in 2020, with a couple from 2019. I’ll be releasing 3 singles in the lead up to the album and have some big plans around them. I also have a number of measurable goals around growing my audience this year. I’ve had similar goals in previous years, and achieved them, but this year I’ve been a bit more ambitious.

I also will be looking for a permanent home this year outside of St. John’s. I’ve been living in a succession of temporary lodgings since returning to Newfoundland in the summer and that hasn’t necessarily been stressful, but it does leave a person feeling a little unsettled. I’m also in St. John’s, which is fine, but not what I want for the long term. When we decided to come back, it was with the idea that if we can’t have all the great things Montreal has to offer, then we’re going to have all the great things rural Newfoundland has to offer. I think it’s also apparent from a lot of the songs I’ve been writing lately that I want woods and streams and trees and flowers these days. So finding a spot to set up and build a studio that won’t bother neighbours is at the top of the goal list.

Then there are my fitness goals. I will miss my gym membership and my body misses the 4 flights of stairs in my apartment, the stairs in the metro, the walk to the studio, the running around on foot carrying groceries, all the booting about you do on foot when you live in a city with amazing public transportation and ploughed sidewalks. So to make up for this I’ve resolved to start each day with going outside for a walk. I’ve made ‘Abs Like Majima’ my mantra for keeping up a daily workout/stretching routine. I’ve set ‘Fight Like Kiryu’ as my mantra to keep up with my Tai Chi practice now that I don’t live next to the Tai Chi school. (Majima and Kiryu are characters from the Yakuza video games who both fight well and have fantastic abs. No one can beat Kiryu in a fight and Majima’s abs are always on display.)

Another of my goals is to not loose the ability to speak French. I’m still working out the best way to do this. It might be to just jot down something that happened everyday in French. I’m listening to Jean-Jacques Pelletier mysteries on Audible, and I’ve got ici.tv for French language television. In other language goals I’m also duolingo-ing Japanese everyday since I spend so much time listening to Japanese in the games I play. Oh! I just had an idea. I’ve been doing a creative writing exercise where I describe an object for 10 minutes. I could start doing that in French! Sweet. See, blogging is so helpful.