KAE TEMPEST brings their mesmerising lyricism to one of Liverpool’s most iconic venues. The artist will bring their new album ‘The Line Is A Curve’ to Camp and Furnace on the 8th May 2022, with support from Shungudzo.
Kae Tempest is a writer and musician from Lewisham, South London. Their first two solo albums Everybody Down (2014) and Let Them Eat Chaos (2017) respectively, were nominated for the Mercury Prize. Their third, The Book of Traps and Lessons (2019) was shortlisted for an Ivor Novello, Best Album.
Alongside music, they have released several poetry collections, a Sunday Times-bestselling novel The Bricks That Built the Houses (2017) and the book length essay On Connection (2020). Their play Paradise (2021) premiered at the National Theatre in London. The Line is a Curve (2022) is their fourth album.
Their latest album ‘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.
This album forms part of the same constellation as two other works by Tempest; On Connection (a non-fiction book published in 2020) and Paradise (an adaptation I wrote that was staged at the National Theatre in 2021). These are the first three works to be published under my new name, and since they have come out as trans/non-binary. Although they don’t deal explicitly with trans issues, they are all explorations of identity, the chokehold of the gender binary and deep struggles within it have been implicit in all the artist’s work.
Now, the artist will bring this new album to the stage of Camp and Furnace, an intimate venue in the heart of Liverpool. With support from the mesmerising Shungudzo, the night will be one where artist and listener will connect over Tempest’s captivating offerings, relishing the tracks ideology of embracing identity, and celebrating oneself.
“The Line is A Curve has a beautiful heart, it was built on love and there is deep love running through it,” says Tempest. “My involvement in every aspect of putting it out, including writing this myself, make me feel closer to the process of offering it to the world than I have before. My hopes for it are that the major themes as I see them, of resilience, acceptance, surrender, come to life in the people listening to the album. But in truth, now it’s done and heading out there into the world, my hopes for it are irrelevant. It belongs to whoever discovers it and means whatever it is they take it to mean. All that’s left for me to do with the record is wish it safe travels and head out there to make it live on stage.”
GOOD TIMES PRESENTS
KAE TEMPEST
+ SUPPORT FROM SHUNGUDZO
LIVE IN @ CAMP & FURNACE
SUNDAY 8TH MAY 2022
Age Restriction – 14+, under 16 with an adult
Ticket price: £25
