Conjures soothing spectral pop on ‘Comfort’
Taken from debut EP ‘Going Home Vol.1’ due 7th April via Kitsuné Musique
Rising London based singer-songwriter Khazali returns with an alluring slice of alt-pop wonder on ‘Comfort’, lifted from his debut EP ‘Going Home Vol. 1’ out now through Kitsuné Musique.
Fusing delicate piano led grooves over a subtle electronic beat, Khazali’s wistful vocal delivery pulls us through a sonic stream of consciousness. Khazali details the track: “I close on Comfort, which is where I began to fall back into old habits, I was almost watching myself in third person around the time I was writing this song. I tried to put it into words. Brian sent me these beautiful broken piano chords, and I broke into tears. I had my notepad, and I just left myself a note, a half-poem saying; ‘I can’t comfort you right now / Let the water wash you down’. I usually know how to comfort myself, but this time I didn’t. The track is also the perfect place to leave the EP, as the second mini EP begins at a point where I was just about to have a self revolution.”
He goes on to add: “Five years in the making from start to finish, Going Home (Vol.1) EP is the first of two mini EPs that I finally feel are ready to be heard. The EP tracks my use of songwriting as a way to better understand my anxieties about life, using dream journals as a device for lyrics.”
With a soft touch that floats above indie-tronica infused electronic beats, recent Kitsuné Musique signee Khazali creates a brand of alternative pop that exists in a space that subtly references teenage influences; SBTRKT, Sampha, Little Dragon and HONNE. Raised in West London, Khazali recalls his earliest memory ‘in a hotel lobby watching Christmas movies’ whilst his Moroccan-born single mother worked as a cleaner.
But it wasn’t his childhood dream to become a singer-songwriter. Although always keen on the arts in some form, Khazali’s journey to his debut EP, ‘Going Home’, was almost accidentally born out of using songwriting and poetry as a therapy for generalised anxiety disorder, diagnosed in his second year of graphic design studies at a small seaside-town university.
After a suggestion from sixth-form school peer and Slow Dance Records founder Marco Pini (of indie band Sorry), Khazali – who has not been classically trained in singing – began exploring his vocal range, and has found comfort in that expression. With ‘a naturally sunny disposition’ (Notion), his voice makes you ‘feel careless’ (C-Heads), with a unique style that spans melancholy, euphoria and dreaminess.
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