Colouring - Love To You Mate [LP]

I've always been on the side of writing up scenarios rather than being really honest about my life," says Jack Kenworthy of Colouring about his second album Love To You, Mate. "This is the first time I've been able to do that. I've not been scared of it because it's not my story. It's a shared one." The Nottingham-based songwriter and producer's life was upended in February 2021, months before release of his debut album, Wake, when his brother-in-law was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. What followed was the most "unbelievable" year of togetherness when life seemed set on fracturing the life of a young man. Colouring has been a solo project since Wake, an album influenced by the 00s post-Britpop greats (early Coldplay, Elbow, Keane) but taking electronic and rhythmic cues from Radiohead and James Blake. The EPs Symmetry (2016), Heathen (2017) and Bn (2018) were released via Interscope Records while Colouring was a poppier affair backed by three other musicians. "When most bands split up, the music stops," Kenworthy says. But Colouring had more to give. Thanks to a confidence boost in early 2020 when Kenworthy's longtime collaborator Luca Buccellati (Arlo Parks) laughed off the idea of him folding the project altogether, Kenworthy did what he usually does: write compulsively as a means of nourishment and escape. Despite being called Love To You, Mate the album isn't just about Kenworthy's relationship with his brother-in-law. "We were this tight-knit, inseparable group of friends for a whole year... a year that was both horrible and great, in a weird way. I really feel we've made this music together." In his endearingly humble way, Kenworthy determines: "I've just taken the photograph.