FKJ, Ohma

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Jack McKain

FKJ

$35 ($32.50 adv.).

media release: Artist/producer and multi-instrumentalist French Kiwi Juice (FKJ) shares today his second studio album V I N C E N T, available now via Mom + Pop. The project arrives after the releases of “Greener” feat. Carlos Santana, “Way Out”, “Let’s Live”, and “A Moment of Mystery” feat. Toro y Moi which earned early support from The New York Times, Stereogum, Hypebeast, and more. FKJ has also shared this week a behind the scenes glimpse into the creation of the highly anticipated album with V I N C E N T “In The Making” - a visual body of never-before-seen behind the scenes footage, giving viewers a glimpse inside the Southeastern Asian jungle where the project was birthed. Watch HERE.

V I N C E N T signals a new dawn for the consummate artist; a frequent collaborator with the likes of PinkPantheress and Moses Sumney, FKJ continues to cement himself as an artist in his own right, continuously selling out headline tours across the globe with his acclaimed ‘one-man-band’ live shows, and having over a billion streams across all platforms for his music. 

The concept for V I N C E N T came about during a solo trip to Los Angeles before 2020. “I just stayed in this house totally on my own, turned my phone off and had some time away from everything to figure out what I wanted to do.” He realized he wanted to tap into the freedom of being a teenager: “back then, I was making music strictly for playfulness, without overthinking it,” he says. V I N C E N T’s opening and closing songs underline the sentiment of the new album: the future-jazz of “Way Out” (a playful mini soundtrack in one; a dainty piano motif underscored by a skittering trap beat and serene strings) and the lullaby-styled “Stay A Child”. “I wanted to get back some of that lost innocence of making music purely for pleasure,” he says. 

Back in his home studio in Southeast Asia, with no wifi and an impending global lockdown, FKJ was quite literally cut off from the world, able to explore music’s endless possibilities. “Sometimes I would get into it for the whole night and go to bed when the sun came up.” Out of this freedom comes an expressionistic, touching album that’s impossible to pin down. There’s no more hiding behind a branch of leaves, as he did on the cover of his 2017 debut. V I N C E N T marks FKJ out as a crucial new voice. He’s redefining chillout music with his bursts of late-night jazz sax and piano, coupled with his wood-cabin whispery vocals, recalling Bon Iver’s early work, and those Santana-styled guitar flourishes.

Much of V I N C E N T is wilfully romantic, sometimes super sexy, and often with its head in the clouds, as on tracks like “Us”, a dreamy ode to his wife June, or “IHM”, which has a 90s hip-hop flavor slowed right down to lights-out tempo. Not entirely a solo record, ((( O )))) appears on “Brass Necklace” – which has the soft power of The Internet and Stevie Wonder’s keys. It’s no wonder that lead single “A Moment of Mystery”, featuring Toro y Moi, has a spacey vibe: while recording in San Francisco together, FKJ, Toro and his keyboard player Tony took some of what Tony called “holy water” – “we shared this bottle and took a bit of a trip,” laughs FKJ. The result is a gentle electronic ode to long-term love that could rival Tame Impala for melodic progginess. 

Little Dragon’s Yukimi Nagano vocal, meanwhile, laces its way through the stunning “Can’t Stop”, and there is a call back to FKJ’s dancier beginnings with “Let’s Live”, a galvanizing techno-pop number that blends piano, handclaps and soulful vocals to dazzling effect. Each of FKJ’s songs glistens, lambently, with a myriad of ideas but it never sounds overblown or too dizzying. 

V I N C E N T is a marvel – and testament to the magic that can happen when you dig deep. “This was a challenging record,” he says. “I’m a perfectionist and it’s hard to shake that off. But once I did, and I let the music take over, I felt totally free.”