Kristine Flaherty, professionally generally known as Okay.Flay is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist from the midwest. As a teen, Flaherty moved throughout the nation to enroll at Stanford College the place she first picked up a mic and dubbed herself Okay.Flay.
After a number of studio albums, two GRAMMY nominations, and sold-out exhibits the world over, Flaherty was confronted with certainly one of her largest roadblocks thus far.
Throughout Summer season 2022, Flaherty traveled to Tanzania for every week of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro – a bucket-list journey she added to her journal seven years prior. Inside every week of returning residence, the two-time Grammy-nominated artist awakened one morning with full listening to loss in her proper ear. The freak incidence was deemed everlasting by docs, finally inflicting Okay.Flay to query whether or not she’d ever make music once more.
In her early touring profession, Okay.Flay used alcohol as a technique to escape actuality however she at all times knew that life-style was not sustainable. The multifaceted artist noticed worth in viewing alcohol and psychological well being as an ever-changing relationship. From there Okay.Flay requested herself, “Is alcohol serving me?” after which she made the choice to stop ingesting.
In Sound Thoughts’s newest episode of Unmasked, Okay.Flay shares why she selected to cease ingesting, how that and her sudden listening to loss affected her psychological well being, and the way her music, “Completely Alone,” is a fruits of the journey.
As a substitute of permitting this life-altering expertise to defeat her, Okay.Flay created the forthcoming album, MONO. Her first launch for Large Music, MONO in some ways marks the beginning of a brand new period for Okay.Flay.
The album’s closing monitor “Completely Alone” is a nod to her whole psychological well being journey and a message to the world that it’s okay to embrace solitude. MONO is Okay.Flay’s most introspective album thus far and he or she desires listeners to know that your whole expertise of the world is inside.
Try Okay.Flay’s episode of Unmasked and stream her new album, MONO, on September 15.