[0:00]So, I'm Kyla Marchell and I'm here with my friend China Moses, who has a beautiful new album out called it's complicated. Uh, it's released independently, it's not on streaming, but it's available via vinyl, cassette, CD. Um, welcome China. Thank you so much for for joining me. Well, thank you so much for the invitation, Kyla. Yeah, yeah. So, um, just tell us about it's complicated and and can you talk about the title because what I hear that I think about the Facebook status. Well, it did start off with that. Yeah, so tell us about the album and how it came about. Well, the title just came from the fact that you always have to find a title for an album and it was really complicated for me to find one. It was an album that stemmed, um, I have writing spurts, uh, creation spurts, and it came, it was all triggered by a very lonely night in a brand new apartment in a brand new city with a bottle of whiskey and a guitar. And I wrote the first song, uh, it's it's okay. I'm not alone, which is a blues. And after I just kept on writing and creating and making these melodies and putting these words together, and then after a while, I was really searching for a title, and I had all these titles that everybody thought were really bad because I'm I'm I'm not a good person to find titles. I'm really bad at that. Um, like my previous album, it's my mom who found the title, Night and Tales.
[1:56]So I just kept on saying, it's complicated, it's complicated and one day I was like, I'm just going to name the album that because not only is it complicated for me to fully explain how and I do music without actually playing an instrument, um, how I hear music in my head, how I'm a natural singer. It's also just complicated being a human, an adult, a woman. It just applies to so many things and I think I also got really fed up with the fact that on social media there is an ongoing you know, just movement of making yourself a better person and you know, the wellness thing and affirmations. And I'm just like, if we keep on trying to trick ourselves into convincing ourselves that life is not complicated, we're always going to keep on waking up with this hangover because life just has all these unexpected terms and life isn't fair, and there's so many things that are, um, not very positive, but they're actually normal. And if those unpositive things weren't there, we wouldn't be able to appreciate the positive. So, it's complicated, and it's okay. Mm. That is that is the most in-depth, uh, response to it's complicated that I've ever heard. Oh, listen. I'm so sorry. I went I went up on a tangent, but I just want to normalize that things are I really feel it's important to normalize that things are complicated and they're supposed to be and you feel so free and so happy when things move smoothly, when you don't have any resistance, but life always makes these radical turns and we, if we all kind of accepted that more, I think we'd be less surprised and we'd know how to adapt better. I I grew up adapting. Um, jazz is about adapting, it's about being able to, uh, you know, adhere to any moment, uh, and I guess that's how I see life. So I thought it was kind of interesting to name the album that also being that I present as a very happy go lucky person. Mhm.
[4:26]I did say present. Present. I hear you. Um, so tell me a little bit about I can be happy the song and also the video. People should check out the video.
[8:05]Oh, the dating song. The dating song. Yes. Um, tell us about some of that including the title I can be happy, not I am happy. Yeah. I can be happy, I can be blue. The the full title of the song is actually the chorus. I can be happy, I can be blue. I can be the worst person that you ever knew. And it just comes from I I went through a very intense dating period. I am somebody who, um, just I just have it's just like my writing. I have big creative periods. I was single for a very long time after I got divorced and one day I woke up and I was like, okay, I need to find a partner now. And so I got on multiple apps and treated it like a job, had a spreadsheet and everything to keep track of all the different conversations with the different wonderful people, um, that I met. I had a whole system in place and it comes from this one date that I had with this guy who was way too gorgeous for me. Way too handsome. Like it was a no. Already when he he looked better in person than in his pictures, which is very rare. Okay. And and he sat down and then proceeded to monologue for about 35, 45 minutes about his ex-wife and his mother, and I drank a lot of wine at that point and had decided that he was picking up this bill because it turned into a free therapy session for him. Um, and that therapy wasn't free, you know, and uh, I went home and wrote this song about the complications of dating. Uh, everybody we have so much choice. Everybody wants to love, but not unconditionally. There are so many things that, so many lists and things that people come to the table wanting, and I had to teach myself to let go of that list and to just be and think of what were the qualities I inherently wanted in my partner, and I actually met a partner who corresponded to those things. Definitely nothing on the list. Absolutely not in the form or anything and I think it's, you know, I think it's very important to address lighter subjects like that, which are actually heavy subjects. Like most people want to have a partner or multiple partners. You know, shout out to my polyamorous people. No shade. Uh, you know, most people want, you know, we want human interaction and I I for years I sang, you know, jazz standards and straight ahead love songs and this either, oh, I love you so much or woe is me, you know, someone to watch over me energy. And I was like, you know, in this day and age, we got dating apps. I'm going to make a song about that and the video totally reflects that and reflects me, what I did is that I had my favorite spot that I would meet everybody at. And that's the video. And all the beautiful humans that I met, you know, were very different physically, um, because I wasn't looking for a physique. I was looking for a person to understand and who would see me and and I could see them. So, I think it's really, you know, there is dating fatigue is real, especially in big cities. Um, and I I I tell everybody who's single, listen, treat it like a job.
[12:04]And get an excel spreadsheets. Get an Excel spreadsheet. Do not be scared and also go to therapy, work on yourself, you know, come come to those come to you can heal and date at the same time. Um, but you got to manage those expectations. It's better not to have any and that's a hard thing to unlearn. You know, we can have our basic expectations. Please come to the date, you know, fully dressed and clean, uh, presentable. Bathed. Pay your rent. Uh, but we're all flawed and that's okay. You know, it's about finding somebody who has, you know, that sweet craziness that goes with yours. That's that's all it is. I like sweet craziness. Yeah, we all we all crazy. And it's fine.
[21:04]Yeah, you know, every once in a while, she'll be like, don't forget to bring the she'll be like, don't forget to breathe. Don't sing too hard. That's it. Okay. That's enough. Seems like it. I mean, it's got me this far. you know, it's got me this far. I think everything else she's taught me about vocals she's just she teaches by doing.
