Back in 2014 Kate Tempest’s Everybody Down found itself at number 4 on my end of year list and in 2016 her new record Let Them Eat Chaos is at number 6. “A complete album - individual tracks sound weaker when listened to on their own. It’s only when you fit the whole thing together and listen to it from start to finish in one go that you feel its density and everything falls into place. Like all the best stories it’s also one that needs far more than one listen to get everything out of it, probably why we've played it so much since we first heard it. That's why it's no.4 in our list of most played records of 2014,” is how I described Everybody Down and this description also fits to Let Them Eat Chaos. As you’d expect with Kate Tempest her very visual wordplay takes centre ground. On Let Them Eat Chaos she brings a cast of characters together to form something that is bigger than the individual and as a result makes something rather special and thought provoking. Using a backdrop of a London street at 4.18 in the morning she delves into the twilight, the alienation, the despair and the hopelessness of people and projects it all onto a bigger canvas of global turmoil, before delivering a powerful call to action ending. That’s not to say that the music here also doesn’t have a place – it does – with Dan Carey returning to the fold again to deliver a varied blend of computerisations, but ultimately this music is designed as a backing to Kate’s words; that’s what you really need to soak up. A compelling and vital piece of work. Kate Tempest - Let Them Eat Chaos (Album Trailer)
A record I’ve been listening to a lot over the last few days is Kate Tempest’s second solo album Let Them Eat Chaos. Whereas Kate’s debut solo album Everybody Down told a story revolving around a small number of inter connected characters, Let Them Eat Chaos takes a different approach. Starting with a view of the earth, Kate zooms in to London and one street at 4.18am where she shines a light on seven dissatisfied individuals who live there, awake at a time when most of us are asleep. She voices their fears, loneliness, isolation and worries but combines those thoughts with views on bigger picture politics; from housing to the environment to work. This album reminds me a tiny bit of John McGregor's book If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things in so far as the words take us behind closed doors into parts of people's lives that we wouldn't normally see, until one event brings the characters together. Like her previous record, it’s not an easy listen; there’s almost too much to take in. But each journey through the album (I’m only 3 days in so far) gives more and more. Lyrical narcissism is so prominent in pop music these days that it's wonderfully refreshing to come across someone not only writing absorbing lyrics full of dexterity, but ones which aren't afraid to say something that bit more thoughtful about the world at large. Let Them Eat Chaos deserves your time. Taken from that record is Ketamine for Breakfast, which apparently has an ‘impact date’ of December 9th. Don’t wait till then though. Let it impact on you now and introduce you to Jemma who lives in a flat “up the stairs, rickety,loaded with history,” and her thoughts of her past, present and revisiting that past. Kate Tempest - Ketamine For Breakfast
It was a joy to listen to Kate Tempest being interviewed about her Mercury prize nomination last year. There was a refreshing positivity to Kate’s words and expression, thankful for the fact that people were understanding the intention of her record that she described as ‘a ridiculous album that we were so excited about.’ Now with a UK tour just around the corner, starting in Breaking More Waves home city of Portsmouth, there’s a new non-album track, Bad Place For A Good Time, out for your listening pleasure. Once more it’s Kate’s love of words that comes across immediately, creating evocative imagery of the city over a solemn piano, buzzy electronics and beats. “There must be more to life than pixels,” Kate raps and initially it seems to be a down and world weary track, but then Kate finds hope: “There’s always some small bit of peace to be found,” she concludes. Kate Tempest is pretty damn special. Kate Tempest - Bad Place For A Good Time
She once described it as just a crazy idea that she had, but Kate Tempest’s Everybody Down has probably exceeded the rapper / poet /playwright and author’s dreams in terms of the public recognition that it’s received, culminating in a nomination for the 2014 Mercury Music Prize. As we’ve said before, this year’s prize list was a particularly good one – Kate’s record is the third to feature on our albums of the year countdown from the nominations. In case you haven’t heard Everybody Down or know very little about it, this is a record that shares some similarities with The Streets A Grand Don’t Come For Free, in so far as it’s a story and tells the tale of a bunch of characters whose lives interweave with each other. That story is centred around a dancer, masseuse and student called Becky. Think Trainspotting but told from a female London perspective. Recorded with producer Dan Carey (Bat For Lashes, Hot Chip) the album starts with Becky meeting Harry, a drug dealer to the higher classes in a bar filled with ‘industry slimeballs, showbiz big-deals, the cool new band with the retro feel’ with Harry immediately falling for Becky, but Becky leaving with her friends in a cab, seemingly not interested. From there the narrative develops and within it Tempest manages to deliver mini-philosophies on life as well as a fair degree of sentiment, ending with an idea that is sweet but never feels sickly in her hands; that love can win through and help save us. Carey’s electronic and techno computerised production, with snatches of guitar matches well with Tempest’s excellent wordplay, shifting in style and atmosphere depending on the part of the story, giving the whole thing a real sense of being believable. Kate has come a long way in the last 10 years. Her previous album with the band Sound of Rum wasn’t particularly well received in all parts, the NME suggesting her lyrics were ‘emblematic of everything bad you heard about poetry slams,’ but with Everybody Down there’s been little critical negativity. This is very much a complete album - individual tracks sound weaker when listened to on their own. It’s only when you fit the whole thing together and listen to it from start to finish in one go that you feel its density and everything falls into place. Like all the best stories it’s also one that needs far more than one listen to get everything out of it, probably why we've played it so much since we first heard it. That's why it's no.4 in our list of most played records of 2014. Kate Tempest - The Beigeness
