Alternative
Michael Kiwanuka said on Instagram on Wednesday that he is recovering from a stroke and that his fifth album, “FUDGE”, comes out on Friday 23 October through Polydor. The brain haemorrhage was brought on by high blood pressure, happened this year and has held the record back.
“I’m so happy to announce my new album, ‘Fudge’. I’m especially happy because these last few months I’ve been struggling with health problems that would keep me from making music for a while,” he wrote. On getting back on stage: “I don’t know when I’ll be back out there or what that will look like. The brain injury I suffered was quite severe and there’s a lot of rehab still to do.”
It is the first album he has produced himself; Danger Mouse and Inflo, who produced the earlier ones, are not on it. He started it at a studio in Southampton with multi-instrumentalist Joe Connell and finished it with producer Dom Monks, with Rosie Danvers on string arrangements. Many of the songs come out of live jams and single takes.
“When I think of fudge, it’s something playful and childlike, and that’s good for creativity. But it’s also a polite way of saying I’ll just get on with it,” he says of the title.
There are twelve tracks: “Summer Clothes”, “California”, “Just Another Moment”, “Drowning In Your Heart”, “Love In My Heart”, “Across The Sky”, “Stars”, “You Sent Me Flying”, “Move In My Direction”, “Steve’s Paradise”, “Sing” and “Swings And Roundabouts”. Stevie Gee painted the cover. The previous album, “Small Changes”, came out in 2024, and in 2020 Kiwanuka won the Mercury Prize with “Kiwanuka”. His live commitments remain on hold, and no new date has been given.
Text by Marçal Bonastre