Singled Out: Charming Liars' Black Cage

Keavin Wiggins | 07-03-2023

Single art

Los Angeles alt-rockers Charming Liars just released a new single called "Black Cage". To celebrate, we asked Karnig Manoukian to tell us about the track (which he also produced). Here is the story:

There's no procedure or manual or strategy to starting a song.... at least when it comes to us writing, recording and releasing one of our songs. With advances in technology and software, we have so many incredible sounds, textures, noises and instruments at our fingertips and in a matter of seconds, I can have a really cool random sound playing from my keyboard. The start of this song originates from a cool synth sound I stumbled on for another song we were recording. I knew it had a tension and fear aspect to it and instantly took a screenshot of the settings on my synth plugin i was using. I then put a calendar reminder in my phone to create a new session a couple days away and start a song with that specific sound. That's essentially how the first notes of the song were created.

Once Kiliyan (vocalist) heard the sound, he ran into the vocal booth and started spitballing verse ideas and the lyric you hear now is the first lyric he came up with! There's a darkness and ambient tense feeling that comes from this specific synth and it gave Kiliyan a feeling of being locked up... being held against your will... being stuck.. and being oppressed. With that in the back of his mind, he was able to map out a general plot line for this song. In true Charming Liars fashion, we always want a chorus that sticks in your mind. Whether it's the melody, the beat, the lyric and if we're lucky, we're able to achieve all those aspects on as many songs as possible. We feel as though this song is no different and with the chorus, we are definitely not hiding the fact that we love the characteristics of 80's music.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more about the band here