Kae Tempest - The Line Is A Curve (Stereo)

Description

Since making their live debut doing spoken word at 16, London-based Kae Tempest has made their mark across multiple disciplines: poetry, theater, fiction, and rapping. In 2012, they won the Ted Hughes Award for innovation in poetry. Two years later, they were selected as one of the Poetry Book Society’s Next Generation Poets. Two of their albums have been nominated for the Mercury Prize.

The tension between the self and the collective is central to their work; so is narrative’s role in bridging those two realms. Tempest has a predilection for myth (in 2013, they released Brand New Ancients, a contemporary retelling of the tale of Tiresias), and their writing often argues for the importance of storytelling itself. On their fourth album, The Line Is a Curve, they turn their attention to more contemporary stories. The album attempts to capture what it feels like to be alive today in contemporary Britain, drawing on familiar signifiers and clichés: online lives, multiple jobs, youthful years drowned in pubs. But as Tempest examines the stop-and-go motions of being, it also feels like they are asking what it feels like to be alive, period.

The Line Is a Curve is a sentimental, prophetic, mimetic, and worldbuilding work that blends moody electronica with elements of neo-soul and grimey hip-hop. It chronicles the afflictions of everyday life and the pressure to overcome them—from the violent desire to dissolve into limerence (“Don’t You Ever”) to breaking patterns of generational trauma (“Smoking”)—and ultimately counsels that we make peace with our daily adversities. With “more pressure” comes “more relief,” they intone on “More Pressure.” Beginning and ending with the same melody, the album’s cyclical structure mirrors the daily obligation to overcome our suffering and endure.

Release info

Label: Fiction Records 0602438639748
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo
Country: Europe
Released: 2022
Genre: Hip Hop, Non-Music
Style: Spoken Word, Conscious

Tracklist

A1 Priority Baredom
A2 I Saw Light
A3 Nothing To Prove
A4 No Prizes
A5 Salt Coast
A6 Don't You Ever
B1 These Are The Days
B2 Smoking
B3 Water In The Rain
B4 Move
B5 More Pressure
B6 Grace