New kwes. album Kinds inspired by children and colour to premiere at Tate Modern
London producer and composer kwes. has announced his first solo album in eight years, titled Kinds, set for release on 27 February and with a deliberate shift toward meditative, ambient composition, inspired by his children and conceived as a form of personal decompression.
The Warp-signed Lewisham-raised artist describes the project as a response to a period of burnout. The creative catalyst came from an everyday moment with his eldest daughter. “[She] was busy drawing and in the midst of it, she accidentally knocked over her glass of drink and it went all over her work,” kwes – real name Kwesi Sey – explains. “It frustrated her for a few seconds, then she was fine and started another one… That was the catalyst for me to start the record - to decompress, to ‘release’ life-experience: good, bad and everything in between.”
Kinds is structured around tracks named after colours, a system Sey explains serves three purposes: "The first being in relation to kinds of thoughts and feelings I had felt while making them, personal reminders / colour-field coded memories in a way. Secondly, so that listeners can experience the music how they want to, without much narrative, and thirdly, I simply just love colour.”
The album, we are told, draws comparison to the ambient works of Brian Eno and Jon Hassell, as well as the textured drones of The Caretaker and Tim Hecker and is notably introspective and sparse – a departure from the more pop-oriented structures of his 2013 debut Ilp or the 2012 Meantime EP.
In recent years, Sey has worked on scores for the film Rye Lane and the documentary Black Is Beautiful, about photographic artist and activist Kwame Brathwaite. The new project was first previewed at Warp’s Barbican event last year and the record will first be presented in a multi-sensory premiere at Tate Modern in collaboration with artist Ryan Vautier alongside an intimate conversation with kwes.
Kinds is released on 27 February via Warp
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