The young musician drops his new single and tells us about how London seeps through his sound
To overlook the mundane is to ignore the beauty that can form within our most nuanced interactions. For Newham-raised instrumentalist, producer and songwriter tendai, simply observing those everyday moments guides his creative expression and forms the genetic makeup of his sound. “What does east London sound like as music, what does SW3 sound like, what does the Jubilee Line sound like as opposed to the Northern Line?” he ponders. Whether it’s the lyrical reference to ‘city lights’ in his debut single ‘Not Around’ or the two-step garage stylings of ‘Lately’, the fabric of tendai’s surroundings is something that is felt and heard in every aspect of his music.
Some of his earliest musical memories are the country and gospel songs that came from his dad’s car stereo. Possessing his brother’s iPod in primary school also set in motion his free-form approach to music, exposed to the artistry of John Coltrane, Jay Sean, Beyoncé, Michael Jackson and Journey. “I used to consume music very widely so now I'm in a place where I don’t think about music in terms of genre, especially when I’m making it.” His process relies solely on intuition rather than creating to fit external, pre-set expectations. Arriving on the scene just last year, the 22-year-old has gracefully handed over four tracks to date, each existing in its own realm of narrative and style with traceable elements of Brit pop, punk, R&B and abstract soul.
From laments of a fading relationship to lustful confessions of adoration, tendai’s lyrics are grounded in some form of reality, while the production floats into theta state territory. Take ‘Lately’, which through its tight layers of warped guitars and reverbed vocals, memorialises the nostalgia of a young crush. “Imagine someone who’s in secondary school and likes a girl at a different school and him feeling like ‘ah I want to go link her’. He'll get on a bus and then think about what they’re gonna say to each other, without being overly dramatic about how it’s supposed to feel.”
Echoes of garage and house flood this co-production by tendai and Jonah Christian, acting as an ode to the city that nurtured him. “If you have an understanding of garage, you know that it's the soundtrack of London. It’s something that you can play to any Londoner and we’re gonna move to it because we understand it.” Whether it’s the scattered rhythm of fresh trainers landing on concrete pavements or the brief encounter of two friends greeting each other with a hearty spud, his approach to production “is supposed to feel like the city,” he says. “I’m not gonna say exactly how I do that cos that’s my ting but I feel like I need to hear that an instrument is alive and add a bit more texture to it, whether that means distorting it or making it feel like data; to make it feel like something that is trying to sound like an instrument as opposed to just being one. By doing that, you allow the listener to be a bit confused in a good way that asks, what is that sound?”
The same principle is applied to his vocal delivery, the idea of manipulating his tone and phrasing in order to convey emotion. He shares the Joni Mitchell quote, ‘I don’t see myself as a singer, I see myself as an actress’ by way of explanation. “There is a real level of vocal performance that is performance. You look at musical theatre and as they’re singing they’re also speaking, conveying dialogue, so I think there’s a way for us to sing and punctuate it to make the words feel a bit more important.”
“My music is supposed to feel like the city”
As an example of his range, the angel-toned vocals introduced to us in ‘Not Around’ is quickly swept to the side in the succeeding offering ‘Infinite Straight’. tendai’s elastic vocals glide between hollow and husky and into a buttery falsetto, penning his reflections of mortality. The spiralling guitar melody and pulsating rhythm section are the main components that carry the spine-chilling soundscape, this time handled by Felix Joseph. Dora Jar christens the opening and closing moments of the track, her words flowing as an omnipresent narrator. The track’s foundation had in fact been laid out before tendai’s arrival; with Alastair on guitar, Felix on drums and Dora Jar on vocals, twisting strings of uncanny melodies rolled into one. “When I heard that piece of music it was just innately haunting, there was something of a tension already in the production so I just had to replicate what I was seeing around me.”
Already possessing a fully formed idea of who he is and what he’s here to express, tendai understands the need for creative collaboration. “You have to respond to where somebody else is going. Being able to stay formless and mould and move is something that’s important,” he reflects. “It’s about figuring out who is able to feel in a similar way as me but still create space for evolution.” The same goes for his relationship with director duo Ethan & Tom who he has worked closely with on all of his music videos thus far. As songs are brought to life in the studio, visual ideas begin to take root in the artists’ mind but the true magic happens when the directors step in with their own perspective. “I see my life as if it were a TV show and Ethan and Tom are personal friends so I think they’re part of the cast. I could work with other people but I’d rather build a team.”
Together they’ve taken us through old-timey, noir landscapes to surrealist dreams but their latest release ‘Pressure’ is a work of art. Against a plain white backdrop, headphones on, tendai is plugged into a world of his own until his love interest steps in and steers his attention. Alongside producer Blakey, the beat experiments with more left-field, electronic R&B paired with his straightforward lyricism. “I’m really excited to hear it and see how people interpret it based on everything else I’ve put out.”
‘Pressure’ completes his first exhilarating chapter as tendai now settles into album mode. The 0207 Def Jam signee is following in the steps of the greats who make their presence known with an album as opposed to a number of short-lived projects. As expected, he assures me that there’ll be a variety of sounds unlike what we’ve heard from him so far. “It's about trying to soundtrack British culture, really. It’s elemental music as opposed to music that’s trying to be singles. I’ve got to step into exactly who I want to be, exactly how I want to be it.” After all, this is tendai’s world and we’re all just passing through.
‘Pressure’ by tendai is out now. Discover it here.