About

Michael Kiwanuka's highly anticipated second album Love & Hate was recorded in Los Angeles and London and produced by Grammy Award winner Brian Joseph Burton aka Dangermouse and young up and coming producer Inflo. Love & Hate is a fascinatingly assured and resonant body of work following Kiwanuka's acclaimed 2012 debut LP, Home Again.

Where that album invited comparisons to the likes of Bill Withers and Otis Redding, Michael's new album struts to a much more psychedelic, freeform beat. The peerless ten-minute opus "Cold Little Heart" evokes the haze of Pink Floyd in its unhurried slow-burn, while "Falling" is a soaring gospel number for the 21st century. There are standout tunes throughout, but Love & Hate is an album that genuinely deserves to be listened to as one, littered as it is with ‘headphones moments' that require real attention to the light and shade of its creation.

Kiwanuka explains, "I've always wanted to make an album that felt and sounded like this one. Working with guys as good as Danger Mouse and Inflo really helped me find what I was looking for. I hope this is just the start of more music to come." The incredible synergy between the two is almost palpable, with Dangermouse confessing "I'd been wanting to work with Michael for a while and once we did a song, we just felt like we should keep going. I knew he had a great voice, but his guitar playing on this album was very important." Kiwanuka ties it all together asserting that "Inflo was the very important last piece that really kept it all going. We really did feel like we were making an important album."

Honest, unabashed, and ambitious, this new record is Michael Kiwanuka emerging from the emotional cocoon of his first album, ready to secure his position as one of the most exciting and renowned talents or our time. – Press Release

“There’s a point, a little over four minutes into the album’s opening track ‘Cold Little Heart’, when the luscious instrumental soundscape retreats and something other emerges. It serves as an excellent totem for ‘Love and Hate’ as a whole, its overall sound being to orchestral ‘70s soul what Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back To Black’ was to incessant ‘60s Motown. It also neatly highlights this artist’s fairly significant transition, four years on from his warmly received debut. While ‘Home Again’ prompted comparisons with Bill Withers because of its expertly honed sound and smoothed edges, its follow up is much more direct and affecting. Having contemplated his faith on those early tracks, Kiwanuka here turns the spotlight on himself and digs around in his own insecurities, inspired by the unstinting honesty of the lyrics of Marvin Gaye.” – CLASH

About Michael Kiwanuka:

Michael Samuel Kiwanuka (born 3 May 1987) is a British soul musician who is signed to Communion Records. He has been compared to Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Bill Withers, Randy Newman, Terry Callier, and Otis Redding, as well as Van Morrison and the Temptations. In January 2012, he won the BBC's Sound of 2012 poll.

Kiwanuka has acknowledged influences from musicians such as Jimi Hendrix, Bill Withers, Otis Redding, Jack Johnson, Pops Staples, The Band, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Eric Bibb, Tommy Sims, Wham!, Richie Havens, and has played with James Gadson, who drummed for Bill Withers. – Wiki

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