Kele previews new album with third single "Nineveh"

After announcing The Waves Pt. 1 with a cover of Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy", Kele has delivered new single "Nineveh", which will feature on the album alongside previous outing "The Heart Of The Wave".

Kele says of the new track, "With all the time spent at home last year I spent a lot of time thinking about the people that are no longer in my life, people that I have left behind. This song is an ode to that idea - the realisation that, however hard it is, sometimes you have to move on. Although there is much written about the sadness of relationships ending (be they romantic or platonic relationships), there can be something quite empowering about saying ‘enough is enough’ and drawing a line in the sand. I wanted to try and express that somehow in the music. There is an undoubtable sadness in the first half of "Nineveh" but that sadness is turned into pure exhilaration in the second half of the song, like a proverbial weight being lifted from one's neck. It ends in a place of optimism."

The Waves Pt. 1 will follow his 2019 album 2042 and the Leave to Remain soundtrack released in the same year.

He says of the album, "The initial plan was that the record was going to be solely instrumental, after 2042 I knew that I wanted a break from writing words. Although making that record had been rewarding it had also at times been quite traumatic for me, as I was forced to examine a lot of my own personal fears and anxieties about race relations in this country and the US. I made 2042 in 2019, so when those same discussions about race came into sharp focus after the death of George Floyd in 2020 I personally felt that I needed a break from the heaviness, I knew that whatever I did next musically would need to cleanse me."

He adds, "Slowly I started adding words and vocal melodies to the ideas and I could see songs starting to take shape but it was important to me that the music felt fluid, that it drifted in out like the bobbing of waves, that if you let yourself succumb to it maybe it could take you somewhere else, somewhere far away from here."