The Friday Dispatch
Kae Tempest, Dan Mangan, pablopablo, Bahamadia and more
The unshackling of Kae Tempest
As Kae Tempest's evolution finds its most authentic form yet, the artist who spent years voicing collective anguish is finally ready to speak his own truth.
Self Titled is the most direct hip-hop record Tempest has made so far. Systemic failures are still tackled: from state-perpetuated transphobia to the atomisation of cultural life, but it’s all done through a personal lens, with a thread of hope. In its directness and sound, Tempest says it’s the record he would have made back at the beginning and it first took shape when he met with producer Fraser T Smith, hoping to shake a creative block. He didn’t expect an autobiographical record to be the result: “Fraser said to me, ‘who else can tell your story? ...nobody. Only you can tell your story. So tell it.’”
Tempest transitioned with the pressure of public scrutiny and a real fear that changing could leave him abandoned by a fanbase he’s worked hard to cultivate. The LP's first verse on "I Stand on the Line" lays bare the weight of that decision. Later, on "Breathe", a 6-minute freestyle recorded in one take, he embodies the panic and pressure of the last few years, and the wider weight of his life story. “I was almost in tears by the end of the recording, it was so intense,” he says.
Throughout the album's making, surrounded by bandmates, contributors and friends, there was encouragement and support. What is essentially a record about the self was made through an outward-looking process and that community was vital. “I was so, so long without it,” Tempest says. “I was so starved of that nurture, of that nourishment, and I did not know why I was so depleted or unwell because I'd never known it. I didn't grow up around queer and trans people – there weren't many people in my immediate circle. My only connection to community would come through my lovers... but I was closeted, and in a lot of pain, and I wasn't ready. I've had this incredible few years since finally coming out where I just want to fucking show up!
Coverstar Kae Tempest’s record Self Titled is out this week, alongside Nilüfer Yanya’s EP Dancing Shoes; Double Virgo’s Shakedown; Kesha’s .; and JID’s GDLU (Preluxe); and Rival Consoles’ Landscape from Memory.
Desk Notes: Dan Mangan
Dan Mangan is a Juno Award-winning Canadian artist (and legend). Fitting that he joins us for Canada Day week! Hailing from BC with seven LPs behind him, he’s become a fixture on the country’s folk scene. He also writes a wonderful Substack and it’s a true treat to have him today.
“I’ve recorded a lot of music in my little basement studio — albums, singles, soundtracks. It’s also the quietest part of the house (except for the hum of the gear), so it’s a place I can get work done when my kids are going insane upstairs. When I was a young musician, I dreamed of one day having my own studio. It’s not large, and it’s not perfect, but it’s mine, and I love it.
1. Mid 60’s Gibson ES-125: The perfect hollow-body electric. It’s all over Natural Light, both as an electric guitar or as a mic’d acoustic guitar.
2. Analog Drum Machines: the CR-78 and CR-8000 have different strengths. When recording with a band, we never use clicks, but when I’m tracking something at home that I want to send to a drummer, it’s helpful if it’s to tempo. I hate recording to a traditional click, so I tend to record to the drum machines - it inherently gives some life and nuance to whatever is happening on top of it, even if you remove it later.
3. Yamaha E1010: My favourite analog delay module. Jason Haberman had one of these when we were tracking Natural Light and I immediately sourced one as soon as I came home.
4. Tell Your Friends hat: Tell Your Friends is a great little cafe on Bowen Island. Our friends own it. I’m telling internet friends about it right now.
5. Oblique Strategies: A set of idea generation cards designed by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt. Used to spur creativity when feeling dry.”
Dan Mangan’s seventh LP Natural Light is out now.
The introduction…
Meet pablopablo, a 27-year-old Spanish artist/producer (and Latin Grammy winner) whose innovative and addictive writing is putting him a cut above the rest.
Hometown… San Lorenzo de El Escorial (Madrid, Spain).
Describe your sound… Folk music for the future.
What's your typical songwriting / song production process… It varies a lot. I try to come at an idea from many different angles. But often I'm just noodling on the guitar/piano/Ableton until I feel like I wanna sing something on top. Then I do a lot of improvising melodies until words start coming out. I also do like that morning pages thing where I write improvised poetry every morning so that I have some extra material to pull from when I'm stuck in a song.
Where you feel most like yourself… I guess I'd say everywhere — my family's from all over the place so I kind of just slip into a different identity depending on where I am. But hopefully I'm myself all the time.
What you’re most proud of… Honestly, I'd have to say my debut album, Canciones En Mi. It really is a body of work that I love a lot.
pablopablo’s album, Canciones En Mi, is out now.
Something Old, Something New
Every week, we share recommendations from the Best Fit community — one from the past, another from the present. This week, writer (and artist) Emmeline Armitage gives us her thoughts on Bahamadia’s Kollage (1996) and The Collective by Kim Gordon (2024).
I work part-time at a record store/music venue, and one of the occasional occupational perks is seeing cool people play cool music, and then taking that cool music as my own. This happened a few months ago when I was drawn to attention by the mottled orange cardboard laying on the decks, and the sultry-whisper rap of Bahamadia’s Kollage. The track that was playing is now one of my all-time favourite jams: “Spontaneity.” It’s lazy kicks and loose, smooth flow are sure-ear worms — if you see me wandering around the streets of East London muttering ‘mad explosive spontaneity’ to myself, no you didn’t. In the album’s “Interlude,” Guru of Gang Starr hops on the mic to describe the body of work as “a collection of lyrical and musical art as a masterful contribution to the hip-hop,” and I’m inclined to agree. Produced mainly by Da Beatminerz and DJ Premier, this gem of the 90s is an astonishing debut, one I urge you to play loudly this summer over the big speakers on a hot, slow day.
I guess I had always wondered, at some level, what it would sound like if Death Grips soundtracked my shopping list. I also guess Kim Gordon’s “BYE BYE” from her 2024 solo album The Collective is as close as I’ll get to something of that nature. Playing hooky from her Sonic Youth origin, and what might typically be expected of a solo project, Gordon diverts her fan’s attention to a sound that is as crunchy and synthetic as you can get while being somehow poetic, and human at the same time. Her lyrics speak to the absurd experience of being in a jaded, consumerist, and medically and socially failed society. On “The Candy House” she asks an absent listener “Are you in a collection? Did you give up your hope? Are you counting?’ before declaring ‘I’ll sing at the party/I’ll pick up vomit from the floor […] I won’t join The Collective.” It’s a tongue-in-cheek admission that she’s wary of the trappings of fame, and where music might take you. Something she’s allowed to say with gumption because she has, in making this album, skilfully resisted many of the clichéd sounds of a debut solo project. I actually had the pleasure of seeing her live at Koko, Camden in last year’s late summer, and still haven’t worn tired of the record. Every time I return to it I get something new from the lyrics, or the incredible, innovative production of Justin L. Raisen.
Listen to the week in new music by following our Discovery playlist
Dropping at midnight every Thursday, follow our playlist for a taste of the best new music from the most exciting breaking artists. Leading the selection this week are new tracks from Ivor Woods, nabeel, Hetta Falzon, Disiniblud, BEL, and coverstars PARADE.
“Glastonbury is a national event like no other: a rite of passage for teenagers, and a familiar place of return for generations of families. For the days of the festival’s duration, it becomes one of the most densely populated places on Earth. It is a temporary, idealistic city that, away from the razzmatazz of the big stages, earnestly champions peace, sustainability and equality, and has no real restrictions on hedonism.”