As soon as PinkPantheress joins Kelela on ‘the bridge’, the penultimate track and final single of new avatar, she helps sum up the entire project: “Spare my eyes, I fear I get no sleep.” For the Washington, D.C.-born singer-songwriter, sleeplessness turns out to be both a blessing and a curse. The night is where negativity festers, curdling uncertainty, regret, and desire into pure nerves; it’s also what gets her gears turning, harnessing a formlessness eventually reclaimed by the morning light. For over a decade, Kelela has proven herself a master of liminal spaces, and the follow-up to 2023’s Raven, for all its rough edges and unpredictable twists, is her most illuminating. Sleep may elude her sometimes, but she knows how to court the dark, blurring the boundary between artist and listener, singer and subject. “Through a prism in my head you consume,” she sings alone on an earlier track, “I’m the curator.”
1. idea 1
Like a smooth, silvery liquid moving slowly down the drain, the introductory guitars portend a world of frightening intimacy. As they accumulate layers during the chorus, Kelela’s voice soars as if hoping to echo through the walls of an empty house where danger looms in every corner, itching at her. “Only decay,” she ultimately sings, an observer first before succumbing to the process: “So we decay.”
2. point black
Kelela’s music often earns rightful praise for its sonic seamlessness, but the narrative continuity here is worth noting: the singer’s most fervent thoughts are activated while a lover lies asleep beside her, allowing her to nail down the toxic, previously elusive dynamic with precise language. “The guns are pointed at me,” she repeats, less to make the truth sink in than in hopes it permeates the other’s subconscious – but not without dipping it in contradiction, claiming that “the bullet set me free.” As the industrial beat gathers more dirt, a moment in the dark sheds light on her newfound agency: “I’m taking what I want, babe/ But you can’t stay.”
3. goin down
Beginning with little more than perfectly textured guitar chords and Kelela’s tender, moody vocals – she was just “too spent too weak,” now she’s “crying all day” – you have no idea where ‘goin down’ might go. The title offers a hint: the moment she verbalizes her downward spiral, a muffled, sludgy beat applies intense pressure, even as her voice once again reaches skyward. It alone seems to soften the atmosphere, and Kelela even injects a bit of humour in the next verse: “When it’s nothin at stake, we run a mile/ I’m talkin marathon shit.” Three songs in and her endurance is already astounding.
4. outta time [feat. A. K. Paul]
The eerie trip-hop beat seems to be cut from the same cloth as the previous songs, darker even, but ‘outta time’ quickly lightens into one of new avatar’s most syrupy songs, not least thanks to its first feature, A. K. Paul. Instead of being worn down, the guitar carries an impeccable shine as it floats above the murky waters. In Kelela’s words, it’s her “Prince/Janet/D’Angelo/Nirvana bag activated.” I’m not going to argue with that.
5. against me
Over guitar and drums that, impressively, cascade with the same level of liquidity, Kelela zooms into a romantic battlefield where arguments prove “paper thin, falling down” – or into the earth, it sounds like. Soon enough, that melodic foundation evaporates, giving way to supple bass and synths that ground Kelela’s words with a certain emotional clarity. “My heart is as heavy as yours,” she sings, ready to let the weight go.
6. crystalize
Kelela continues to give the impression she’s writing this whole album while her lover is asleep; ‘crystalize’ picks the lyrical thread up from ‘point black’ while the guitar seems to spring forth directly from ‘against me’. “Are you up? Are you mine? Borderline,” she sings, that last word encapsulating the blurry space Kelela is comfortable traversing. The same sentiments creep up – frustration, uncertainty, helplessness. Even as the relationship seems to have run its course, though, the singer remains an idealist, asking – not the person so much as the light in their eyes – “Are we tethered inside?”
7. retaliation lullaby
The you doesn’t arrive here until late into the track; before the recurring accusation “you sleep in,” before retaliation is even on her mind, Kelela’s primary concern is sleep. She’s tossing and turning, “waking up to the rain outside,” though the actual sound of it in the background has a lulling effect, washing the dirt off the guitar arpeggios. There are echoes of every one of Kelela’s projects throughout new avatar, but ‘retaliation lullaby’ hews closer to In the Blue Light, last year’s unplugged album reinterpreting songs from across her discography.
8. linknb
Driven by an airtight rhythm section, Kelela quickens the album’s pace to match her train of thought, a confidence she knows might give too much away. “All I know is that I paved the way,” she sings, surely not by chance, not long before the album’s two big guest appearances.
9. don’t piss me off
For another artist, ‘don’t piss me off’ might have worked better as a duet, but Kelela is such a versatile singer, and her voice is so compellingly treated, that it doesn’t need to be. Against her better judgment, she stretches her bravery to its limits as she commands her lover to come over (“Subject: me + u/ Location: my place/ Time: now”) before she loses her patience. Notice how the gauzy guitars have faded from view, as if confusion can be cured by fixating on the present – or forging it into being.
10. new life forms [feat. Fousheé]
‘new life forms’ is R&B at its most escapist and ethereal, a brief respite from all the seemingly toxic masculinity that darkens the rest of the album. Or, as Fousheé artfully puts it, “Mario and Luigi gone/ Couple baddies on the beach/ We took them titties out,” but not before commanding us to “blast these fuckin speakers til there’s hearing loss.” It’s funny, given it’s one of the record’s most lushly understated songs – worth turning up, still, if only to relish Oscar Scheller’s detailed production.
11. the bridge [feat. PinkPantheress]
Maybe not so much: before its conclusion, new avatar glides from breezy playfulness to a pure state of euphoria with help from another Oscar Scheller collaborator, PinkPantheress. Having her on ‘don’t piss me off’, where the beat is punchier, might have made just as much sense, but their intimacy here is so effortlessly invigorating that it doesn’t need an ounce more tension. “First time, just right” indeed.
12. if we meet again
“Even when you say you regret it you make it so obvious,” PinkPantheress observes on the previous song. On the closer, Kelela herself imbues the word “obvious” with endless melancholy: “You could hear this song but you’ll never see/ All the ways you were killin me,” she sings over an arrangement so sparse you might be convincing she’s finally falling into slumber. It might as well have been a demo dreamt up in the middle of the night, but her vocal performance is impeccable and direct even at its quietest. “You don’t rock hard enough” is, perhaps knowingly, an accusation one could theoretically throw at new avatar; some promo that suggested it would incorporate heavier instrumentation. You could never hear this album and actually believe that, though; at least you’d have checked out way earlier. Kelela may be tired of some shit, but she’s not one to give up so easily – not when staying up a little longer can yield such beautiful music.
