2022 looks set to be a super busy year for writer and musician Kae Tempest, with announcement this week of their brand new album and accompanying UK tour.
Serving as the East London natives fourth studio album, The Line Is A Curve is scheduled for release Friday, April 8th via Fiction Records and will feature the Firesmoke singers latest single More Pressure featuring Kevin Abstract from American Hip-Hop boy band BROCKHAMPTON.
More Pressure (Official Lyric Video)
Having reflected upon the experience of touring their last album The Book of Traps and Lessons in 2019, Kae realised they wanted the follow up to be a “communicative record”, with the concept of the record manifesting itself in the contributions of other artists including Kevin Abstract, Grian Chatten of Fontaines DC, Lianne La Havas, ássia, Confucius MC.
Commenting on the album, Tempest says in a press release: “‘The Line Is A Curve’ is about letting go. Of shame, anxiety, isolation and falling instead into surrender. Embracing the cyclical nature of time, growth, love. This letting go can hopefully be felt across the record. In the musicality, the instrumentation, the lyricism, the delivery, the cover art. In the way it ends where it begins and begins where it ends.”
“I knew I wanted my face on the sleeve. Throughout the duration of my creative life, I have been hungry for the spotlight and desperately uncomfortable in it. For the last couple of records I wanted to disappear completely from the album covers, the videos, the front-facing aspects of this industry. A lot of that was about my shame but I masked it behind a genuine desire for my work to speak for itself, without me up front, commodifying what felt so rare to me and sacred. I was, at times, annoyed that in order to put the work out, I had to put myself out. But this time around, I understand it differently. I want people to feel welcomed into this record, by me, the person who made it, and I have let go of some of my airier concerns.”
“I feel more grounded in what I’m trying to do, who I am as an artist and as a person and what I have to offer. I feel less shame in my body because I am not hiding from the world anymore. I wanted to show my face and I dreamed of it being Wolfgang Tillmans who took the portrait.”
In celebration of the LP’s release, Kae will hit the road this Spring for an extensive tour of the UK and Ireland.
Scheduled to kick off in Manchester on April 22nd, the 20-tour will see Tempest in cities including Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin, Birmingham, Cardiff, Sheffield and London before closing the tour in Gateshead on May, 21st.
Tickets go on sale at 10am on Friday, January 21st January via myticket.co.uk. Check out the full list of tour dates below:
April 2022
22nd– Albert Hall, Manchester
23rd– Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh
24th-SWG3 Galvanizers, Glasgow
26th– Corn Exchange, Cambridge
27th-De La Warr Pavillion, Bexhill
28th -The Dome, Brighton
30th – Roisn Dubh, Galway
May 2022
1st– Cyprus Avenue, Cork
3rd– Cathedral Quarter Festival, Belfast
4th– Vicar Street, Dublin
6th-Marble Factory, Bristol
8th– Grand Central Hall, Liverpool
10th-Town Hall, Birmingham
11th– Stylus, Leeds
12th– Asylum, Hull
14th– St. David’s Hall, Cardiff
15th– The Octagon Centre, Sheffield
16th-O2 Academy, Leicester
18th– Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London
21st– Sage, Gateshead