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Keir: Blood In The Water
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Bristol based Keir releases single Blood In The Water, a snapshot of what’s to come with a debut album due in 2023
The first thing that hit me when I saw a photo of Keir was ‘that’s Marc Bolan’. The resemblance is uncanny. Musically he’s also been compared to Beck, Pink, and even Prince. Similarities or influences aside though, the artist has looks and talent to suggest he’s going to be a major artist.
Born in Bath, Keir was brought up in the small West Country town of Corsham, the child of an English father and a half-Indian mother. His maternal grandfather hailed from Bangalore, and his mother’s mixed-race heritage ensured she experienced racial prejudice first-hand during her own childhood on the Isle Of Wight. The eldest of three brothers; the middle of which plays drums in Keir’s band live and on his records. Keir began playing guitar and then keyboards in his early teens, although he readily admits, he set off wanting “to be like Nick Cave and not play an instrument at all.”
Keir tells me he initially (almost exclusively) devoured pop music, listening to artists like Avril Lavigne and Enrique Iglesias, before his brother turned him onto Jimi Hendrix. After that, a stint as a trashy-garage-guitar-and-drums, White Stripes-influenced, two-piece with his brother resulted in him not thinking or particularly caring about his future anymore. “Early on,” admits Keir, “I just wanted to be famous, These days, none of that matters. It’s like I’m living through some kind of after-life.”
The road to “these days” involves a five-year-long, writing and recording relationship, with fellow musical traveller, and Bristol based George Glew. Keir explaining that it’s George who holds the whole thing together, successfully transformed “the darkness, joy and isolation of the human condition” into music with a pounding, heartbeat, depth, and an instant, classic feel that’ll make you think you’ve had these songs knocking around the house for years.
On the subject of the mid-tempo Blood In The Water, with it’s Floyd-esque cover; “It’s about a particularly painful break-up during the first lockdown,” Keir explains, “I wrote it after I had come to terms with the world ending. ”The track is wrought with images of impurity – blood clotting, coagulation, bodies colliding – and dark metaphors of disease, desire and dishonesty. It’s restrained yet soaring vocals that had me hooked and wanting to hear more
UK live dates for late 22 and early 23 will be announced soon.
Keir is on Facebook and Twitter
All words by Iain Key. See his author profile here or see him on Twitter as @iainkey.
