Kwes: ilp. – review

Producing for the xx, playing keys for Bobby Womack, recording mixtapes with Micachu, being sampled by Kanye – 26-year-old Londoner Kwes has done a lot before releasing his debut album. You can see why doors have opened: there's something distinct and unusually ebullient about his electronic balladeering. That's not to say it's upbeat; the tempo is low, the vocals are monotone, the sonic pallette often that of drone and discord, and the lyrics can seem inconsequential. But it is in the composition of sound that Kwes stands out. In interview he has spoken of having chromesthesia – when sound is given a colour in his mind's eye – and his music feels like it has been composed in the same way as a painting. At times – the beguiling melody of Flower, the Sgt Pepperesque flourishes on Purplehands – it is possible to be entirely transported.