Rising London based singer-songwriter Khazali is poised to announce a brand new release with the arrival of ‘NYC to CDG’, an introspective minimal pop gem lifted from his debut EP ‘Going Home Vol. 1’ due 17th March through Kitsuné Musique.
Drawing on a myriad of influences from RnB, Soul, electronica and pop, ‘NYC to CDG’ is the first single taken from the EP and will be accompanied by a cool lyric video featuring Khazali himself. He says: “NYC to CDG is a story about a character trying to escape his small town for famous landmarks. That character isn’t me – I grew up in the big city. And I actually escaped to a small town when I was 19 – when the journey to this mini EP began. I really needed someone to tell me that what I had around me and inside me was enough, and I could never escape this anxiety. So I just said it to myself. It’s nice to have a love letter for me, by me.”
He goes on to add: “Five years in the making from start to finish, Going Home (Vol.1) EP is the first of two mini EPs that I finally feel are ready to be heard. The EP tracks my use of songwriting as a way to better understand my anxieties about life, using dream journals as a device for lyrics.”
With a soft touch that floats above indie-tronica infused electronic beats, recent Kitsuné Musique signee Khazali creates a brand of alternative pop that exists in a space that subtly references teenage influences; SBTRKT, Sampha, Little Dragon and HONNE. Raised in West London, Khazali recalls his earliest memory ‘in a hotel lobby watching Christmas movies’ whilst his Moroccan-born single mother worked as a cleaner.
But it wasn’t his childhood dream to become a singer-songwriter. Although always keen on the arts in some form, Khazali’s journey to his debut EP, ‘Going Home’, was almost accidentally born out of using songwriting and poetry as a therapy for generalised anxiety disorder, diagnosed in his second year of graphic design studies at a small seaside-town university.
After a suggestion from sixth-form school peer and Slow Dance Records founder Marco Pini (of indie band Sorry), Khazali – who has not been classically trained in singing – began exploring his vocal range, and has found comfort in that expression. With ‘a naturally sunny disposition’ (Notion), his voice makes you ‘feel careless’ (C-Heads), with a unique style that spans melancholy, euphoria and dreaminess.