Author: Adam Gorecki. Adam is a London-based writer, maker, and photographer with a broad love for anything that catches his curiosity, particularly music. Graduating with a Level 4 Diploma in Copywriting from The College of Media and Publishing, he sees music as a complex social study and is fascinated by how brilliant ideas can be brought to life. He has a critical eye for great storytelling and thrives in exploring the philosophical side behind an artist’s intentions and what can ignite a spark that lasts for generations.

Sometimes it’s better to be weightlessly gliding above the hustle and bustle of life than to try and form a path amongst it. That’s the impression that I seem to gather from Michael Kiwanuka’s long-anticipated return to music with ‘Small Changes’ (2024). The album features the reunion of producers Danger Mouse and Inflo who also produced the previous two projects. It’s been five years since the Mercury Prize-winning predecessor – Kiwanuka, an album that I highly regard as a world-renowned, upbeat funk/soul chart-topper of the 2010s. However, a lot can happen in the space of five years. For many of us, we saw a pandemic, new governments, historic conflicts and a transformed wave of new media. For Michael, he had started a family.

What we get after a long period of peaceful refuge and domestic life is a self-assured, ripened and delicate collection of songs that can elegantly articulate the maturity and growth that may come with being a new father. Unlike his previous successes such as 2016’s Love and Hate and 2019’s Kiwanuka, we see no strive for musical dominance here. Casting aside the spellbound string arrangements, heavy African drums and fast-paced cadences, we gain a more content and stripped-back project that has a more spiritual and reassuring presence about it. Small Changes allows you to experience the weightless sensation of zero pressures in a cut-throat industry, and Michael flourishes in his own tastes.

We experience this sense of weightlessness from the outset with the intro track – Floating Parade. In this piece, we get a reintroduction to Kiwanuka. We’re encouraged to forget everything we knew about his roaring introduction, You Ain’t The Problem, from his previous studio album. After a long hiatus, we’re told that he’s okay and living life in abundance. A graceful introduction of gospel harmonies that soothes you into the album.

“Ooh, love like this, nothing like this,”

There are progressive strings, light rolling drums and an ascending baseline which fully immerses you into this ‘pressure-free’ zone, offering a floating sensation.

Following this, we meet our title track – Small Changes. A track with a slightly slower tempo, which progresses ever so slowly throughout. As we move throughout the track, we keep meeting a weightless gospel chorus on the “small changes on your mind”, each time we see the track pickup slightly more in tempo and the drums grow to be more complex. At its climax, we’re given complimentary cymbals and a soothing guitar solo that sedates us into the comfort of the track. One and Only stands out as my favourite song of the entire record. I remember smiling when I first heard the melodic guitar riff that makes you feel nostalgic towards a song you’ve only just heard for the first time. It’s very Michael. As you continue making your way through the tracklist, you come to find out that maybe Michael hasn’t strayed too far from his own unique talents.

Furthermore, an underrated moment from this project is the elegant outro and beat switch that bridges Lowdown part i and ii. These separate songs intertwine with a beautiful change in rhythm which then melts into a soaring, echoey guitar solo that lasts the entirety of part ii. I like to think that this is because an outro this beautiful deserves its own track entirely.

Michael described his incentives whilst recording the project during his ‘The Making of Small Changes’ documentary:

“for me, true mastery of something is how simple you can make it and it still speak”

With that in mind, I feel that what we can take away from a project like this is gaining the ability to ask ourselves how we feel when listening to our favourite projects. The answer I’d expect most of us to say is that ‘it sounds right and it feels nice’. Forget my overly analysed rambles, at the end of the day that’s all that good music needs to be. Right and Nice.

Similarly, it explains why his lyrics have such a minimal style. The construction of strings, melody, harmonisation and production were the priorities of this project. Not the writing. Michael also dives into the idea of having to “face his fear” when it comes round to it. For the first time ever, he physically sat with a pen and paper and “lived his worst nightmare”. With the eventual outcome being “amazing”.

“it’s funny when your back’s against the wall, what it can bring”.

Again, it’s following the creative process through only intuition. Staying loyal to what feels ‘right and nice’. It’s what makes this project so pure, it comes from a singular place of positive instinct. Avoiding living in a place of overthought is probably where this freeing sensation comes from. In tracks such as The Rest of Me, we’re met with a more upbeat ‘Bill Withers’ esc track. It’s fun, maybe slightly clichéd or “cheesy” (according to Michael). But this still aligns with the overall theme of the project and continues to represent the comfort and self-assurance that Michael has now earned as an artist.

“Even Bill Withers had Lovely Day. For every Grandmas Hands, you need a Lovely Day”.

As the old phrase says, ‘comparison is the thief of joy’, and if you find yourself comparing this piece of work to his previous albums, you may end up missing the point of it. I wouldn’t encourage first time listeners to be so put off by the album’s consistency in pace and formula. The point of floating is to remain gliding at a particular point and to enjoy the views around you. This album may not offer outrageous peaks and notable hit singles, and that may be why so many people have decided to continue to follow Michael thus far. But this album probably wasn’t written to please any of you. I think in an age where there’s such a desperate artistic strive to construct memorable and powerful projects with that ‘wow factor’, it’s nice to see artists continue to create albums that simply aim to represent a singular feeling all in one. In other words, this album is one song, one moment, one feeling.

It feels right, and it definitely feels nice. Welcome home, Michael. x