Song Exploder - Kae Tempest - Move

Episode Date: August 10, 2022

Kae Tempest is a songwriter, rapper, an award-winning poet, and best-selling novelist. They’ve been nominated for the UK’s Mercury Prize and Brit Award. Their most recent album is The Line is a Curve, which came out earlier this year. It was executive produced by legendary producer Rick Rubin. Kae made the album alongside their longtime collaborator, producer Dan Carey. I talked to Kae and Dan talk about the song "Move." You’ll hear the first demo they made, which sounds almost nothing like the final version. In this episode, they talk about how the track evolved over several sessions, months apart. Kae’s own life changed a lot during that period. They came out as trans and non-binary in 2020, and this song, in part, helps tell the story of what they were going through. https://songexploder.net/kae-tempest

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi K. K. K. K. Tempest is a songwriter, rapper, an award-winning poet, and best-selling novelist. They've been nominated for the UK's Mercury Prize and Brit Award. Their most recent album is The Line Is a Curve, which came out earlier this year. It was executive produced by legendary producer Rick Rubin. Kay made the album alongside their longtime collaborator, producer Dan Carey. I talked to Kay and Dan about how they made the song move. You'll hear the first demo they made, which basically sounds nothing like the final version. In this episode, they talk about how it evolved over several sessions, months apart.

Kay's own life changed a lot during that period. They came out as trans and non-binary in 2020, and this song, in part, helps tell the story. of what they were going through. but a really severe, like three or four years. But this was the crisis point because I could not hold it down anymore and I had been having these constant panic attacks, I've been having them on stage.

I didn't know at this point that I was about to come out publicly a couple of months later. I didn't know that was going to happen, but I was like fully in the kind of riptide of it. So this song move is about that. It's about these panic attacks, feeling like completely out of control,

suddenly finding your body just doing these things that you just, you don't recognise, but I had decided to fight my depression and the episodes of panic with the biggest force for good in my life, which is creativity. My name's Dan Carey.

So whenever I'm in the studio with Dan, it's like the safest place for my creativity. Knowing that I've got a day in the studio with Dan, knowing this day was coming, it was like, okay, just get to the studio, just get into that chair in Dan's studio, and it will come out. The first thing we did is just make something that sounds like...

That day when we sat down to right move, I was in a kind of stagnant, heavy place. I wanted to shake it off. I wanted a heavy beat because I wanted to write a heavy lyric. Okay, we'll give some acknowledgement that it's going down the right route. I can just tell when they're feeling it. I can hear you kind of muttering to yourself. That helps me know, without any words,

exchange, I kind of know if I'm barking out the wrong tree or not. I met Dan, I think it was probably 10 years ago, and I saw his studio and I was just like, I'd never seen anything like it. One day I just phoned him up and said, hey, like, do you want to make a beat? I just knew that this person was somebody that I had to be around. I just felt like I had to be around Dan's creativity. We went drums and then the kind of organy sound. Yeah, I think the organy thing that the organy thing that the Moog sound and then when we start writing we tend to go into our own worlds.

I had this image of like the firing squad and the woman just facing the firing squad and smiling. You are what you hate off the rule but standing there facing a wall with the firing squad awaiting the call. Her last thought was fuck these guys and she fell with laughing eyes. Sometimes I'll describe something to Dan. I'll say oh hey can you play something on the guitar that sounds like this character in the face of certain defeat, feeling like this resolution or this hope or this like smile regardless.

Dan will just pick up the guitar or go to the piano and then just using this description that I'll give him that just finds this way to a melody. The way I am as a writer and the way I am with this particular song is it often takes me to just get the first thing out of the way so I can be like, right, okay, I've got all the cliché out of my system. You know, like in that first draft, there's loads of rubbish, but I like the hook. Move, I'll fight you till I win. I'll fight you till I win. I'll fight you till I win. I might do none of it or everything.

Move, I'll fight you till I win. I thought that was strong, but then I actually, I didn't need, I might do none of it or everything. I just needed that first line. And then lots of time goes past before we get another session. The next time we get together, we listen back and we're like, I really loved the kind of looped organ. I loved how heavy the drums were. They were so heavy and kind of sparse.

And then I just decided that I didn't like any of the lyrics. It was just like, no, this isn't right. It's all really vague. It's not direct enough. And then... Well, then what happened is the pandemic happened. Yeah. And we ended up in such a weird state.

When me and Dan had to sit two meters away from each other, it was like summertime, so it was hot. And I think we weren't allowed to use the air conditioning. I'm allowed to use the air conditioning. So this was the lockdown session. Yeah. We really went in on the song and we did these roads parts. I dug down into the lyric.

Pick your battles, obsessional ticks. Bouncing off the bricks is what it is. Everything slips. Sure you're gonna get it till you miss. We were really into it. We followed it for ages. But sometimes we followed this thing. We think we're going somewhere really interesting,

but it's not quite right. And then the eureka moment comes. moment comes. This is shit. We just scrapped all of the music. And then got the Swarmatron and just played that. The Swarmatron is an eight oscillator monosynth with a control that lets you manually adjust the eight oscillators, which makes it sound very organic because no two notes are the same.

I think it's like a signature sound and something I really associate with me. and Dan just being totally on fire. So if we're struggling with this particular song, we're struggling with move. And it's like, well, what does the Swamachron have to say about this? Why don't we just fuck all this off and just like turn the Swamotron on? And then, well, that's what happened.

As soon as I heard that beat, it just electrified me. I was just like, oh, yeah, this is it, this is it. With the previous iterations of the song, we've been like, this is interesting, this is cool. But we hadn't been like, this is it. And I think before it was lacking some energy. It was like a little bit of vague and maybe a little bit of general in the beat. In the first version, it sounds like a fight that you're losing.

Yeah. And this one, it sounds like a fight that you're winning. Yeah. So move. I'll fight you till I win. I'll fight you till I win. I'll fight you till I win. I'll fight you till I win.

Move, move. I'll fight you till I win. I'll fight you till I win. I'll fight you till I win. I'll fight you till I win. So we started with completely different lyric and a completely different beat The next thing we had a different lyric

Then we had a new beat, new lyric But it's the same song And then at that point it's like right Okay now I'm ready to perform this The whole record's put together in a way that you wouldn't imagine So we finished all the songs Laid them out into one long session Muted the vocals

Hired a theatre Got an audience And Cape performed the whole thing three times I wanted to speak to one person, building on some stuff that I learned with Rick Rubin, about what happens to the vocal when somebody is in the room to listen to it, how I rise to the occasion. And then I took that thought further and I thought I wanted to be three different generations. So that's what we did.

Reduced to repetitive myths, pound for pound with the devil who kicks, can't stop swinging, but it never connects. I throw my whole body into nothing but missed. We did it first from the generation above me, a friend's father who was 78 at the time and then it was person of my generation a poet from my neighbourhood from South London and then it was three people of the generation below

I thought it's better to have three of them because I thought it was a very intense thing to just do to one 14 year old kid you know yeah and I just did the whole record and they listened and I spoke to them eager to please help help going under telling myself I won't settle for anything less than the best I can wrestle out of this tenuous vessel.

It was a really strange experience. By the point we got to this recording, Dan's heard these lyrics hundreds of times. Finally, we get to the point where it's time for me to do these vocals. And Dan said, I've never heard you mean it like that. I've never heard the lyric mean what it meant when you were speaking it on the second take to my friend, Bridget Minnamore, the poet.

And pretty much we used the entirety of the second take. I imagine that Bridget would have given you, even subconsciously just giving you a bit more feedback that you might have recognised? I remember move coming on. I knew Bridget was going to love this song so I just jumped on it. Face like a plate of raw meat

screaming, I can't be beat, half dead, ready to drop. Truth is I just wanted it all to stop. I was repressing a hell of a lot. I hadn't come out and I was like suffering because of it. I wasn't doing anything about it. I was like just, yeah, this state of repression. Jumping at shadow sketchy Smiling like nothing upsets me

It's upsetting I drown it in silence Fence myself in until nobody answers Clutching the carpet and praying the tears Like a storm breaking over a desolate plane I was waiting for the moment When everything changed But it never came

I really liked the line Smiling like nothing upsets me It's upsetting Originally it had been smiling Like nothing affects me It's upsetting And then I changed it to that I feel like it says a lot about what it's like to be hiding and repressing.

Move, I'll fight you till I win. I'll fight you till I win. I'll fight you till I win. I'll fight you till I win. I knew that I wanted these male vocals, I wanted these backing vocals, low voices underneath it. Move, I'll fight you till I win I'll fight you till I win.

I'll fight you till I win. I'll fight you till I win. I win move. So that's Grian Chatton from group called Fontaine's DC and Confucius MC. Grian has got one of my favorite voices of anybody making music right now. And then Confucius MC is somebody that I began rapping with when I was a teenager at 16. And so it's really beautiful that he's on the record. I've seen the monster came out from under the bridge.

Even that didn't stop me long as I live. I will flounder, buckle and doubt, but I'll go round for round till the rounds run out. When it's all too late and the rain in the graveyard, plant my tree looking out over London, so many things that never came good, but I did what I could. I'm thinking about death and the end and plant my tree looking out over London.

You know, this place that I love, this place that I got so much from, so many things that never came good, but I did what I could. I'd like that to be a galvanising thing, something that I could offer. When it's all said and done, I'd like to be remembered of somebody who,

fucking tried, you know. Sometimes I feel like hope is just the most antagonistic and like violent concept. You know, sometimes I hate the thought of it. It feels so untrue and unreal. And it seems so far away from the reality of what it's like to persevere. One thing that you can say about us is that we keep going. We do persevere, and the more that you've born, the more that you will bear. And I find the idea of persevering, of continuing.

I find that really comforting. At the time of writing this song, I was in a state of real melancholy and I didn't have much power before I had been able to say out loud, look, I'm non-binary and I'm actually trans. But then even just saying these words, you know, it's like a manifestation. I'll fight you till I win. And I gained the power, gained the strength to pick myself up and keep myself up and keep the words. pick myself up and keep going.

It's been a big thing. It's a massive thing, and it's like coming home. Do you feel like you're still in that fight? I'll fight you till I win, or do you feel like you won? No, no, no, no, no. There's no winning. There's no winning. There is no winning.

But you keep fighting, you know. That's how I feel right now. I don't know, maybe with time I'll see something differently. But right now it's like the fight is the point. And now here's Move by Kay Tempest. in its entirety. So move. I'll fight you till I win.

I'll fight you till I win. I'll fight you till I win. I'll fight you till I win. Move. Move. I'll fight you till I win. I'll fight you till I win. I'll fight you till I win.

I'll fight you till I win. Jump in a shadow sketchy, smiling like nothing upsets me. It's upsetting. I drown it in silence. Fence myself in until nobody answers. Clutching the carpet and praying the tears like a storm breaking over a desolate plane.

I was waiting for the moment when everything changed. But it never came, eager to please, help, help, going under, telling myself I won't settle for anything less than the best I can wrestle out of this tenuous vessel. I've seen the monster came out from under the bridge, even that didn't stop me long as I live. I will flounder, buckle and doubt, but I'll go round for round till the rounds run out. When it's all too late in the rain in the graveyard, I plant my tree looking out over London, so many things that never came good. But I did what I could move. I'll fight you till I win. I'll fight you till I win

I'll fight you till I win I'll fight you till I win I'll fight you till I win I'll fight you till I win I'll fight you till I win More pressure More release To learn more visit

SongExploder.net You'll find links to stream or download this song I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career.

And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists. And it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Weinrobe. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album

with a different amazing guest moderator in each city. Like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzuchas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage. And then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishi-kesh.co. Or just go to songexploder.net slash live.

That's song-exploder.net slash live. Thanks. Song Exploder and the show's theme music were created by me. I produced this episode with Craig Ely, with artwork by Carlos Lerma, music clearance by Kathleen Smith, and production assistants from Chloe Parker. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm. You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Rishi Hereway, and you can follow the show at SongExploder.

You can get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi-Kesh-Hirway. Thanks for listening.