Producers these days are knocking our socks off at younger and younger ages. The latest homegrown prodigy to do that is Kuren, real name Curtis Kennedy, a 17-year-old, 1 of a 1500 town in regional NSW. Yesterday he released his first EP, Love Lost, and it makes me ashamed of what I was doing when I was 17.
“Heartbreak is real, but there is a way to mend. We’ve loved and we’ve lost but we are never alone. Anything you lose will always come around in another form. This is Love Lost EP.”
Kuren’s a young man who wears his heart on his sleeve, and isn’t afraid to show it. Drawing inspiration from fellow Australian producers like Ta-ku, Love Lost is an emotional journey through Kuren’s own experience of loss and recovery, with each track’s title taking us through these different stages of dealing with it all. You may well be familiar with his track It Still Hurts, which released earlier this month to some huge acclaim – well the rest of the EP lives up that standard. The production is straight up gorgeous – it’s subtle when it needs to be, and every sound has been tweaked to perfection. Too often an artist will release an EP which is just a collection of tracks that they’ve thrown together, but Love Lost flows into itself constantly. I Miss You and Recovery move from so sad to uplifting so well, I caught myself thinking that they were the same track.
With already a huge following on Soundcloud and Facebook, Kuren is no doubt going places. At only 17, it’s hard to think of where he could be in a few years, but it’s too exciting not to. Make sure you have a listen, and get it via free download as well – this is the sort of music you’ll want with you at all times. Big ups Kuren, this is beautiful.