❉ Singularly unique pop artist Keir releases his “sadly-defiant” new single, out today.
The first fruit of Keir’s debut album – due Spring 2023 – is the heart-breaking Blood In The Water. “It’s about a particularly painful break-up during the first lockdown,” Keir explains, “I wrote it after I had come to terms with the world ending.” The track is wrought with images of impurity – blood clotting, coagulation, bodies colliding – and dark metaphors of disease, desire and dishonesty. When Keir gently hollers, ‘I don’t wanna show that I’ve never been down this low…You spill your blood in the water,’ it’s enough to make you weak with emotion. The track is accompanied by a resplendently angst-ridden video directed by Harry Steel.
Bristol-based Keir is already receiving huge and enthusiastic support from the likes of Wonderland Magazine – “Keir is leading us straight to the future of music” – as well as being championed by Spotify playlists duvet day, The Lovely Little Playlist and BBC Introducing.
“Art makes me happy. There is never ever a reason to be bored. There is always something you can do. Paint, make something, play a guitar.”
Keir is a singer, performer and multi-instrumentalist, entirely comfortable with the fact that he can’t read music. “I write and play music intuitively,” he says. “If I knew the intimate details of what a chord actually is, I wouldn’t be able to attack writing a song in a childlike way.” Correspondingly, he maintains music “isn’t like Maths”. Though Philip Glass might have something to say about that, Keir’s point is simple. “I don’t like clever music” he says “I like chaos and disgusting, atonal middle-eights.”
Born in Bath, Keir was brought up in the small West Country town of Corsham, the child of an English father and a half-Indian mother. His maternal grandfather hailed from Bangalore, and his mother’s mixed-race heritage ensured she experienced racial prejudice first-hand during her own childhood on the Isle Of Wight.
The eldest of three brothers – the middle sibling plays drums in Keir’s band live, and on his records – Keir began playing guitar and then keyboards in his early teens, although he readily admits, he set off wanting “to be like Nick Cave and not play an instrument at all.” Keir initially (almost exclusively) devoured pop music, listening to artists like Avril Lavigne and Enrique Iglesias, before his brother turned him onto Jimi Hendrix. After that, a stint as a trashy-garage-guitar-and-drums, White Stripes-influenced, two-piece – with his brother – resulted in him not thinking or particularly caring about his future anymore. “Early on,” admits Keir, “I just wanted to be famous, These days, none of that matters. It’s like I’m living through some kind of after-life.”
Well, of course, these days involves a five-year-long, writing and recording relationship, with fellow musical traveller, George Glew – he holds the whole thing together, you, get the picture. He’s successfully transformed “the darkness, joy and isolation of the human condition” into that rare beast, music with a pounding, heartbeat, depth, and an instant, classic feel that’ll make you think you’ve had these songs knocking around the house for years. Either that, or Keir has somehow wired himself into some illicit songwriting machine.
“It’s always about the moment. I want to live every one as if it’s ‘live or die’, being totally present, having catharsis with the audience.”
Keir is a one-off. Comparisons to artists like Beck and Pink, and even Prince, are relevant here. These artists all share one thing in common: they kick (or in the case of Prince, kicked) against the pricks. Songs like Blood In The Water, Lemonade and Time (Is A Healer) are just about as nuanced as it’s possible to get these days, tiny snapshots of a life lived, beatific sugar-coated assaults on the soul. Easy for you to say, I hear you cry, but all we ever asked for was an artist with soul, a singular vision, and a cool look. Keir has it, like those music icons we all revere. But Keir is also his own thing, someone who defies categorisation, someone who has to be seen, a new future, a real artist for our times – think George Michael – but someone who also has a deep but healthy mistrust of the world around him.
You have been warned. He’s the real thing!
❉ ‘Blood In The Water’ is out October 14th 2022, through Vertigo/Universal: https://umg.lnk.tt/BloodInTheWater
❉ Keir will be announcing UK live dates before the end of the year. Keir’s debut album will be released mid-2023.
❉ News source: Jane Savidge PR.
❉ We Are Cult is not responsible for the content of this news release.
