Alt-R&B singer Kelela has announced her first live album, In The Blue Light, will release Feb. 11 via Warp Records.
The album was recorded in May 2024 over a series of intimate shows at the iconic Blue Note in New York City.
Kelela collaborated with bassist and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Aged (Frank Ocean, FKA twigs) with background support from Alayna Rogers and Xenia Manasseh.
According to press materials, “The album is a masterful celebration of Kelela’s musical intersectionality, seamlessly weaving together soul, dance, jazz, and R&B into a cohesive and captivating body of work.”
The 13-track LP includes reimagined versions of songs from all chapters of her discography, ranging from 2013’s “Bankhead” to 2023’s “Raven.”
The first single, “Better (unplugged),” is available now. The original version of the ballad appears on the Kelela’s 2017 album, Take Me Apart.
In a past interview with iHeartRadio, Kelela opened up about the song’s creation.
“That’s one of the biggest sort of melodic downloads that I’ve ever had straight off the top of the dome. I jammed it out with Mocky, who is a frequent collaborator of mine. We we were in the studio and I remember him just picking a simple electric piano with a lot of reverb on it,” Kelela said.
She continued, “After the entire thing pretty much played out, I was just like, ‘What Phil Collins song am I biting? What is this Janet song?’ And he’s like, ‘That’s not a song, I don’t think.’ For the longest time, the song was called ‘Did I Bite Phil Collins?'”
In the same interview, she shared the meaning behind the track. “‘Better’ is about this sort of reconciliation with your partner. There’s a way that I think we discard of people once we break up with them. We’re just like, ‘You don’t live in my life. Cut you out of my life. You don’t exist anymore’,” Kelela explained.
She added, “And, I don’t know. In queer spaces, it doesn’t feel so much like this. There’s something particular about the queer experience that just makes it so that ownership and relationship is something that everybody is against — or doesn’t want to be apart of. When it’s really abusive and when you need to stop, obviously cut them out of your life. But there’s also times where it’s, ‘We’re just not meant to be together and it’s not your fault or my fault.”
Kelela further explained that the person she wrote the song about was an ex that she continued to be friends with. “We figured out a way to really heal,” she said.
In The Blue Light follows Kelela’s 2024 project RAVE:N, The Remixes, which featured mashups and remixes of tracks from her 2023 album, Raven.
Stream Kelela’s “Better (unplugged)” and see the tracklist for In The Blue Light below.
Kelela’s In The Blue Light Album Tracklist
1. Enemy (unplugged)
2. Raven (unplugged)
3. Take Me Apart (unplugged)
4. Bankhead (unplugged)
5. Waitin’ (unplugged)
6. 30 Years (unplugged)
7. All the Way Down (unplugged)
8. Furry Sings the Blues (unplugged)
9. Blue Light (unplugged)
10. Love Notes (unplugged)
11. Better (unplugged)
12. Cherry Coffee (unplugged)
Presave Kelela’s live album In The Blue Light here.
