Manchester-based musician and composer William K.Z. is pleased to announce his forthcoming second album Post Coital Jazz, set for release on 17th June 2022.
To celebrate the album news, the video for lead single ‘Sleep City! Sleep!’ is out now, with the single released on 28th January 2022.
Commenting on the video, director Antony Morris says: “Zero budget, zero lights, one community hall. We decided the interest and energy of the video will come from the inherent un-glossiness of it. Hence everything is handheld and framed centrally with a vintage 8mm/16mm look (grain/aspect ratio) added in post. The ‘narratives’ were live performance, basketball denouement and boy band-esque synchronised swaying. We used available natural light which was helpfully a low winter sun and generally backlit everything and bounced a full light in. It was short, fun and blasphemous.”
Blending elements of jazz, afro-beat, hip hop, indie rock, classical composition and psych, the album processes the emotional upheaval of the post-university slump and sonically calls to mind the conceptual opuses of Prince‘s Purple Rain, The Beatles‘ Sgt Pepper’s… and Pink Floyd‘s The Wall, with a twist The Shins, some 21st century production style and a hefty dollop of irreverence.
Coming face to face with the potential of an uninspiring life and the breaking off of a long-term romance, Post Coital Jazz was penned at a pivotal moment of change in the songwriter’s life.
“After a year of planning and rehearsing for a tour of my opera ‘Growth of the Silk’ I was pretty exhausted, and COVID and its isolation came as a welcome break,” explains William of the formative period. “However, at the time quarantine happened, I was alone in a house in Dorset. It was in this house that I would spend 30 days of solitude, collecting old songs, going through a long-term relationship break up, finding my love for alcohol again, and completing Post Coital Jazz.”
Graduating from The Royal Northern College of Music with an honours degree in composition in 2018, the Manchester-based musician became intensely interested in musical theatre whilst studying at the conservatoria. Leading to the creation of his first staged work A.O.L (2016) and then his graduation portfolio production Growth of the Silk (2019), the latter was programmed as part of London’s Tête à Tête Opera Festival. In addition to his theatrical work, William has been commissioned to compose work for The British Library, CoMA, VideoJam, Psappha Ensemble.
Since forming at the RNCM, William’s band Bethlehem Casuals have also achieved considerable success both commercially and on the live circuit. Playing a dexterous, sunny, party band clatter—an overspilling box of afro-beat, ska, and jazz being carried down the stairs with clumsy aplomb—many of those sprawling influences now tip over into his solo work.
The Casuals have performed live at Glastonbury Festival as well as Latitude, BlueDot, Manchester Jazz, and several other international festivals. 2019 saw the release of their debut album Feels on Wheels and a supporting live performance for Marc Riley on BBC6Music. Most recently, Bethlehem Casuals released their 2020 follow up album The Tragedy of Street Dog, a children’s-book-styled concept album, to rave reviews.
Further details of K.Z.’s new album will follow over the coming months.
Second album Post Coital Jazz is released 17th June 2022
William K.Z. online:
