REVIEW: Kelela’s ‘new avatar,’ a Transformative Listening Experience
WRITTEN BY MAKENZIE TAFRALIAN
✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩
Photo by @____neva
There is something about Kelela that is pure magic. Anywhere she goes, I will follow. That remains true for the artist’s most recent summer drop, new avatar. From the melty melodics and trademark textures and tonalities that brought forth Raven in 2023, Kelela is serving sweet summertime seduction in her newest release.
Listening to Kelela’s music is like being reborn; there is something about it that launches the listener to new and uncharted territories. She seamlessly connects the sonic world of her music to the visual components, too, creating completely new dimensions in music that are truly hypnotic. Watching a Kelela music video is like watching NASA footage of a planet you’ve never seen before; it has you in an instant trance. Though some scenes may look familiar, it evokes an altogether new feeling. It’s like she becomes something else—a new avatar if you will—though the lines between the artist and the art become blurry.
This album has been in my rotation consistently since its release in early July and I felt not enough people were talking about it. new avatar is the love child of all the beautiful sensualities of classic R&B music combined with Kelela’s own creative influx of a varied number of other genres, making something that is entirely its own thing. To pin this down as a singular genre or spawning from one source of inspiration would be doing a grave disservice to the limitless places this 12-track album transports listeners. It has an ambient, shoegazey quality to it that makes it the perfect album for virtually any listening occasion while simultaneously having lyrical density that is ideal for a superfan’s deep dive into the artists’ personal history and struggles.
Touring the album now through early November, I’m positive hearing this live would be a transcendent experience that anyone-dedicated fan or brand new to her sound-would thoroughly enjoy. If you are lucky enough to find Kelela coming to a city near you, you’d be missing out on an artist of a generation not to get tickets to see her conduct her sorcery in real time.