Whitney Tai has returned with a new single titled ‘The Dying Kind (Demo Version)’. Don’t let the ‘demo’ moniker fool you. A masterful work of sonic art laden with imagery from a life lived to the fullest with many chapters left to go. I have always found Whitney to be one of those artists that can be an inspiration to those who follow her career and knows the path she’s taken to get to where is is and see where she is going.
While subtle musically, ‘The Dying Kind’ hits heavy in the feels and cracks the walls of isolation to embody a new you.
Check out our other features with Whitney Tai HERE.
About Whitney Tai & ‘The Dying Kind’
Art Pop singer-songwriter Whitney Tai had a very different scope of what the future looked like before COVID touched down. Walking a seamless tightrope of avante-garde releases spanning electro-pop and alternative rock while also releasing highly-acclaimed sophomore Pop Rock LP, Apogee, she was fixing the dawn of a new progressive metal project that dissolved as the pandemic arrived. With early influences like Chris Cornell, A Perfect Circle, Killswitch Engage, Stone Temple Pilots and Evanescence, Tai started a side project with then bandmate, Kingsley, in the stylings of a moody & dark rock debut.
In January 2020, a week before her solo project headlined NAMM, she played a debut show under moniker, The 1905 with a brand new cast (teasing a darker, heavier album). The first of the songs was, “The Dying Kind;” the most stripped back power ballad of their set. Consequently, the name itself would also become the demise of the new-found project. Years of struggle in the pandemic shifted everyone on a different course but Tai was determined on bringing these songs to light. She elaborates, “writing and performing these compositions tapped into a lot of unresolved trauma from my childhood, years of harrowing deaths, family members with substance issues, depression, anxiety, psychological abuse, loneliness and stunted growth that comes from this environment.” The rugged and distorted guitars glide seamlessly through lush chord progressions in a soulful groove as Tai opens a direct vein into the center of chaos. Her melodies and lyrics create a flowing sense of calm, and of hope, that reside far outside the cunning lines of self-defeat.
After finding herself on the GRAMMY ballot this year for best pop duo and best rock album categories, she is chugging forward in completing her 3rd Long Player. Tai is also chipping away at a brand new acoustic album as well as unearthing a series of dark rock gems, like The Dying Kind, which have festered to the surface from the lockdown era. Textural, sensitive and organic, The Dying Kind, became her tranquility in the face of calamity.
