Kamal. landed himself on every meaningful 2021 “one to watch” list after “homebody” dropped the week before the first UK lockdown in March 2020 and became an accidental pandemic anthem. Then followed a Billie Eilish co-sign for his next single (“blue”) and a collaboration with Dave on 2021 single “Mercury”. This project crystallizes that promise. At least half war outside’s songs were written and recorded in the North Londoner’s bedroom, with the other half worked on in studios with “magician” producer J Moon. The radical change in the world’s collective circumstances guided him in the direction that the finished project would take. “I went down a more mellow route, because that’s how I was feeling at the time,” Kamal. tells Apple Music. “I’m writing to chords at home a lot of the time, because I feel like that’s when I can most connect to my lyrics…when it’s literally just me, writing late at night, I feel like I can be as honest as possible.”
The EP, with its contemplative minor R’n’B/soul chords providing the backdrop to a young man (he was 18 on its release) sifting through the puzzle pieces of his memories, thoughts and feelings to form a full picture, reflects the late-night solitude it was written in. Kamal.’s voice is clear and evocative, communicating just as much emotion with the way he inflects a syllable or holds on to a note until it fades out as he does with his open, confessional lyrics. “My entire discography is mainly based around two girls in my life…which is an odd thing to be saying, but that’s the truth of it.” Kamal. says. “Sometimes I forget that I’ve written such honest songs and then they’re out in the world and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, what have I done?’” Allow Kamal. to walk you through his EP, track by track.
lose “‘lose’ is about thinking how deep you are in a relationship and wondering whether it’s worth pursuing it further. And it’s about knowing that regardless of the decision you make, neither one’s going to be easy, and realizing you’re in that difficult situation—‘either way I turn I lose’. We added a dramatic string section which makes it a really nice opener for the EP. I think if I was listening to a project like that and it had such a large, grand ambience moment early on I would be alarmed in the best of ways—so that’s what we tried to do.
war outside “This song talks about one of the two girls the EP is about but it more focuses on themes of anxiety. Obviously there’s not an actual war outside, it’s about the overwhelming feelings I can get, or did get during the lockdown period, every time I left the house. It was just how I viewed it—that there was an actual threat outdoors, because it did feel that way at times. I don’t think there’s necessarily more horrible things going on around the world, we just have more access to it. That’s good in a lot of ways because it means that more things are being addressed by people, but also it is really desensitizing to an extent, and a lot of people my age are growing up numb to these tragedies and conflicts that happen. During the Black Lives Matter protests I appreciated everyone sharing videos of really horrible things that had happened to raise awareness, but at the same time I was also aware that it was becoming so normal to just see Black people experiencing violence on your phone and then scrolling past it. I think that’s a really dangerous place to be in.”
duvet interlude “I think this is my favorite song on the EP, mainly because of the lyrics and how honest they are. That was a song that I made originally completely in my room on Logic. And because it was such a safe space, I was sitting in my bedroom and I literally just spoke into the microphone. A lot of it is actually freestyled, And I think because of that I made this really raw piece of art. I sent it to the girl it was about straight off. She’s also a singer, so there’s a been a bit of back and forth, which I think is the problem with dating musicians. There are lots of indirects flying about through the lyrics.”
homebody “When I wrote this, the pandemic hadn’t happened yet…and I actually wasn’t that much of a homebody prior. So it’s not really about being an actual homebody, but more about feeling at home in your head and in your thoughts. and when you’re in social situations, seeking comfort in just being amongst your own thoughts, feeling that slight disconnect between you and what’s going on around you, but not being angry at it, being accepting of it and comforted by it.”
angel! “Another song I wrote really late at night, alone on my piano, downstairs in the living room. It’s about someone unloading on you and that becoming stressful, but because of the love that you have for them, it being difficult to accept that maybe the relationship isn't the best for that reason. I wrote it relatively soon after I’d had this experience that I didn’t enjoy with this person and then I felt like it was a turning point in my eyes, realizing that it wasn’t really going to work for me because I was feeling like I was really taking the brunt of their emotions—‘angel lacing my mind with your poison’. Obviously I love this person dearly and I have this image of them and I want to put them in this good, angelic light, but they’re poisoning me. I like the contrast between those two words.”
little pieces “I wrote this about getting into a relationship after being in another one and realizing that you might not have as much energy for it as you expected, because you’ve expended so much of it on the previous person. I put it in a more positive light and framed it as, ‘I wish I could have had the full-energy version of myself to give to you now, but that doesn’t exist’. You can’t get those pieces back. You can definitely build yourself back up, but it will never really be the same as the older version of you. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. When you’re that connected with someone and that close to someone for a long period of time, you’re both giving loads of yourself to the other person. Whether that’s in the form of memories or conversations or knowledge that you are both trading with each other, you take bits of them with you as you move on in life. There’s definitely some beauty in that.”
curfew “This song is about the aftermath of a relationship, looking back, reflecting and apologizing, in a sense. The chorus is about trying to be friends afterwards and the difficulties that comes with that. At the time, I felt like trying to be friends with someone you’ve been with too soon afterwards can result in a lot of unresolved feelings being left hanging about. I put my value of the person over my value of the relationship, so even after it’s done I’m like, ‘We should still be really close and we should still be best friends, I still love you loads, you should still be in my life.’ But it’s not so easy for other people to make that decision sometimes, because they have to have a period of coming to terms with the fact that we’re not together in the same context that we were before.”