Ones2Watch Home

photo by Ashley Osborn

Producer and songwriter K.Flay, nee Kristine Flaherty, has joined forces with Pierce the Veil's Vic Fuentes for their new single "Irish Goodbye." It's the latest to be released before K.Flay's forthcoming studio album MONO, out September 15.

"Irish Goodbye" is the album's heaviest and hardest-hitting track, serving as an intimately detailed portrait of choosing self-preservation over succumbing to possibly toxic desire.

The single opens with buzzing guitar riffs and K. Flay's signature, emotion-filled vocals luring the listener. She paints a picture of bubbling anxiety, spending an evening hiding in the bathroom, and avoiding social interaction. Over intensifying production, she dares the source of her stress to "Take one last look at me/ before I go into the night/ in the blink of an eye," declaring that she's given them a deserved "Irish goodbye."

Seething warped vocals and deliciously distorted instrumentation fill the air, setting up the second verse perfectly for Pierce The Viel's Vic Fuentes to build off of the sonics that Flay has so carefully crafted. His rugged vocals lead into raging screams that weave intricately around the escalating, bombastic sonics. "I was screaming in the demo to that song, and eventually I realized, 'I have a friend who screams professionally, so maybe I should get him on this,'" Flaherty recalls.

"Irish Goodbye" follows the electrifying "Shy," which was released in June with news of MONO, and the LP's riveting guitar-driven lead single "Raw Raw," released in April just ahead of her co-headlining tour of the US with grandson. MONO is the LA-based, Illinois-born artist's fifth full-length studio album and first since waking up one morning at the end of August 2022 with total hearing loss in her right ear—a freak occurrence her doctors deemed permanent, leading her to question whether she'd ever make music again.

"For a while, it was upsetting to even listen to music, so at some point, I had to ask myself, 'Can I still do this? Do I still want to?'" says the musician. But soon after returning to the studio and resuming work on MONO, K.Flay found her sense of purpose profoundly renewed. "I felt an urgency I hadn't experienced in quite some time," she reveals. "It was like this massive sensory change had put me back into a beginner's mind, where I felt so free but also compelled to put everything I had into making the record great." K.Flay co-produced MONO and enlisted Paul Meany to executive produce the 14-song project, which mines the depths of her psyche to uncover essential truths about the pain of loss and the power of transformation.

It is through this internal examination that she has created a body of work that hopefully will inspire others to reflect and grow past their own trials and tribulations.