For Kaya Wilkins, songwriting is therapy. On Both, her 2018 debut under the name Okay Kaya, the Brooklyn-via-Norway singer built a small diorama of minimal bedroom pop with lyrics about her mental health, traumas, and desires. Its moments of feeling lost in social and sexual scenarios were oddly relatable, whether earnestly asking a lover to come with her to get an IUD, or exploring her curiosity about BDSM via Matrix costumes. On her second album, Watch This Liquid Pour Itself, she again lets listeners in on another intimate journey of self-reflection through frank disclosures about her life, this time drawing on laconic folk, downtempo rock, and upbeat disco to foreground a different mental cleanse.
One of Wilkins’ inspirations for Watch This Liquid was Hippocrates’ theory of chemical systems regulating human behavior, especially the black bile secreted by the kidneys that was said to cause depression and melancholia. The album is likewise Wilkins’ own purge, giving equal weight to an everyday encounter, a moment of longing, and a fleeting memory of her past, including time in a psychiatric hospital following a depressive episode. She tells her stories through a lilting voice that crawls from a whisper to a crisp contralto, which highlights her wry sense of humor. “Overstimulated” floats on a gently plucked electric guitar, easing you in as she describes feeling turned on with deadpan over-awareness: “Anything could happen/At any given time/No wonder why I’m overstimulated.” This trick works best with some of her more cynical lyrics; “Everybody, please give a warm welcome to this current mood,” she begins in a woozy, sardonic voice before reminding us we’re all at the mercy of the planet on the deceptively buoyant pop-disco interlude “Mother Nature’s Bitch.”
The album’s more pointed instances of stilted, blunt-force lyrics sometimes undermine Wilkins’ sarcasm. Her verbiage can be so edgeless as to pull you out of the song entirely, like when she grips you by the shoulders in the beginning of “Asexual Wellbeing” for some inexplicable brand-name whiplash: “All I need is your cerebral per diem/That midnight Van Leeuwen/Netflix and yeast infection.” It’s charming and funny in doses, but dilutes the power of her confessionals and keeps us at arm’s length. Later on the album, she tries to get ahead of the most salient critique here: “My lovers used to like all of my songs/Now they only find me annoying.”
Watch This Liquid eventually finds its footing, even if it’s a little off-kilter. “This is Scandinavia,” she pronounces on highlight “Givenupitis,” populating a vision of her home with droll references to its “children of apathy” and “politicians” over a spare trip-hop beat and a ringing bell. In moments like these, Wilkins’ obliqueness gives way to something deeper, raw, and atypical, like on the dreamy, horn-laden “Popcorn Heart,” when she compares her heartbeat to ducklings, “strong, streamlined, and quick.” At times the honesty on Watch This Liquid Pour Itself might be its worst fault, but it’s usually its finest quality.
