The announcement of Michael Kiwanuka’s fifth album ‘Fudge’ also came with the sad news that he had suffered a stroke in July of last year. I personally just want to start with wishing Michael all the best with his recovery in what must have been, and continue to be, a very difficult time. I’ve been a huge fan of Michael’s ever since he played ‘Tell me a tale’ from his first album ‘Home again’ on Jool’s Holland in 2011. Since then he released the exceptional ‘Love and Hate’, the Mercury prize winning ‘Kiwanuka’ and, his excellent fourth album, ‘Small Changes’. All of these records are outstanding and the touring performance of ‘Love and Hate’ that I saw at the Brighton Dome was mindblowing.
It transpires that ‘Fudge’ was written and recorded more or less at the same time as ‘Small Changes’ but with it Michael wished to do something very different. He’d been feeling the pressure of being a professional musician with all the over-thinking and self doubt that that must entail when he stumbled upon an interview with jazz pianist Chick Corea on Instagram, part of which opens the album: “You have to be certain about what you like, not what you think sounds good to someone else…Whatever you think is beautiful, that what’s beautiful, and you have to pursue that.”
Inspired by this, Michael started recording in a small, one room studio that looked like a mediaeval hut near his home in Southampton – I need to see this! – he filled it with equipment and started making music that sounded beautiful to him. In doing this he stepped away from long term collaborators Inflo and Danger Mouse in a very ‘don’t worry, we’re still mates way’, and instead turned to his live band’s insanely talented multi-instrumentalist Joe Connell. As luck would have it, Joe lived just round the corner from this mediaeval village experience and was possibly brewing his own mead at the time but these reports are scant and largely made up by me. ‘Fudge’ is then a hugely stripped back departure from all of Michael’s recent work and honestly, the results are astounding.
The album soars, floats and drifts like a bird riding the air beneath its wings. The delivery of each song is just so tender and fragile that you feel incredibly close to the music as if Michael is in the room with you. Songs like ‘Across the sky’ have a wonderfully delicate quality to them. An acoustic guitar strums lightly while Kiwanuka sings with care and gentleness while some graceful instrumentation in the background builds the song without it ever being too much. You lean in as you listen and I love the rawness, the fretbuzz that’s been left in, the one-take feel gives a layer of purity and humanity that can be lost with over production.
The beautiful ‘Stars’ follows ‘Across the sky’ and opens with the distressed, rasping electric guitar that could have come straight from Kiwanuka’s second record ‘Love and Hate’ or from beneath the fingers of Neil Young. This steps back to allow the vocal to breathe only to return and recede like waves lapping on a beach. Strings enter and build with some hauntingly layered vocals as Michael sings; “We’ll be stars / we can live out on the stars tonight.” The guitar then returns with a seemingly spontaneous ‘woah’ from Michael that’s reminiscent of Mick Jagger reacting to Merry Clayton’s heart stopping vocal in ‘Gimme shelter’. All of this adds to the gloriously homespun, naturalistic feel of the record.
This vibe runs through the album, each song is an utter delight and the results are incredibly tender, full of longing, desire and soul. If Michael Kiwanuka started this process off with a wish to create something that sounded beautiful to himself then he’s also managed to create a record that sounds beautiful to me as well. There’s a confident fragility, a playfulness and warmth throughout ‘Fudge’ that is organic and glorious in its simplicity. I adore it. Thank you Michael and all the best.
