INTERVIEW // KAWALA
KAWALA BY JULIE BOYLE
NOW MORE THAN EVER, WE all need some joy in our lives, so there’s no better time for the return of Kawala. The five-piece from Kentish Town - Jim Higson, Daniel McCarthy, Ben Batten, Reeve Coulson and Dan Lee - have been a ray of sunshine in the UK music scene for the last few years, mixing indie, folk and afrobeat with socially-conscious but positive lyrics, alongside unique live shows that are more like a jubilant gathering of friends than anything else. After finding their much-anticipated tour with heroes Bombay Bicycle Club cancelled when last year’s lockdown kicked in, the lads regrouped and threw themselves into the only thing they could do - writing
THIRTY TWO // GNIMAG.COM
more songs. The result is the glorious Paradise Heights, a six-track mixtape that is custom-built to soundtrack a Summer of reconnection and celebration. It’s a collection that sees the young band at the peak of their creative powers and features a track co-written by previous tourmate Justin Young, as well as a cover of Griff and Honne’s 1000000x Better. Oh, and it’s accompanied by a new Youtube series of the same name that reveals Kawala are just as talented at producing comedy as they are music. Make no mistake, this is a band who are determined to make the very most of what has been a difficult time and they’re bringing everyone else along with them.
Guitarist Daniel said: “The songs have all come from various different places. Some are really old, some are really new. The pressure was taken off completely with this project as it’s not an album, it’s just a collection of music that we felt was the right time to put together. They’re all mostly really upbeat songs, so with the Summer coming, everything opening up again and people coming together finally, it just felt like the perfect time for this mixtape to come out. Lockdown was a weird period, as it allowed us to take a step back from the speed that everything was going and focus on the most important thing, which was the music that we wanted to put out. We were having conversations about doing an album, but
