- Scaling new heights with one of the most important artists of the last five years.
- Klein has been a darling of experimental music since emerging with ONLY and Lagata in 2016, which immediately bowled over an audience transfixed by her beguiling collages of R&B, grime and voice. There is an allusiveness to her audio work that clearly transcends such generic descriptions, betraying the connective thinking of an artist equally at home in film, theatre and gallery contexts.
Despite her immediate impact, recent months have seen her hit a new peak of activity. She's just announced her feature-length directorial debut, Care—an adaptation of a 2018 theatre production of the same name—which interrogates the social care system facing youth in the UK (she also played the film's lead role, wrote the script, edited the footage and wrote the score). Meanwhile, she's also revealed a new album, Harmattan, which shows her effortlessly reworking classical music tropes and debuting on the Pentatone label, typically considered an outpost for capital-C Canonical composers like Wagner, Mahler and Brahms. Klein spoke with Andrew Mensash about her early music, the new album and the significance of feeling heard.
TracklistKlein - Hope Dealers [Pentatone]
Klein - roc [Pentatone]