Kae Tempest has announced a string of headline shows along the East Coast in March in support of their upcoming album The Line Is A Curve out April 8 via American Recordings/Republic Records. The dates include Washington DC on March 22, Boston on March 23, and Brooklyn on March 24. Tickets go on sale this Friday, February 4 at 10AM local time. Visit the artist’s official website for further information.
Last week, Tempest dropped the official video for their latest single “More Pressure” with Kevin Abstract. The video was directed by Harris Elliott and Manny Bonett and features live performance footage shot during the original vocal recording of the album, recorded on the day by Brian Rogers, alongside abstract animation created by 3D visual artist Zongbo Jiang.
The Line Is A Curve, produced by long term collaborator Dan Carey alongside executive production by Rick Rubin, follows Tempest’s widely adored 2019 album The Book Of Traps & Lessons, which received praise from the likes of NPR, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and many more, and saw Kae perform live on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Night With Seth Meyers.
Tempest and Abstract’s shared friend and collaborator Rick Rubin played BROCKHAMPTON The Book of Traps & Lessons in his studio, and they had reached out to Kae afterwards to thank them for the inspiration, leading to the exciting collaboration on “More Pressure.” The Line Is A Curve also follows Tempest’s critically acclaimed 2021 play Paradise, which premiered at the National Theatre in London last year.
After the experience of touring The Book of Traps & Lessons around the U.S., U.K., and Europe, Tempest realized that they wanted The Line Is A Curve to be a communicative record. The concept manifested itself both in the contributions of other artists—including the aforementioned Kevin Abstract, Lianne La Havas, Grian Chatten of Fontaines DC, ássia, and Confucius MC—and during the recording process, when Tempest decided to do three vocal takes in one day, to three different generations of people; “a man of 78 who I’d never met, a woman of 29, the poet Bridget Minamore, who is a good friend of mine, and then to three young fans of 12, 15, and 16 who had responded to a social media post.”
Kae Tempest plays the following US shows:
March 22: Washington, DC, Sixth & I Synagogue
March 23: Boston, MA, Brighton Music Hall
March 24: Brooklyn, NY, Music Hall of Williamsburg.