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Onwards!

by Contour

supported by
Ibn Salaam.
Ibn Salaam. thumbnail
Ibn Salaam. Heard this for the first time a few months ago, I didn’t even know Contour — I was blown away. An excellent piece of work. Favorite track: You'd Do Well to Pack Light.
If I Was Your DJ
If I Was Your DJ thumbnail
If I Was Your DJ 2022 Album of the year. Just Bought 5 albums to hand to my most loved ones. Words don't come easy while in front of so much deepness, beauty, power.
johnny santini
johnny santini thumbnail
johnny santini wow, this is diffrent n ive known it all my life. deep as hell in message and pocket Favorite track: Nigga Won't Reach Mars.
willislistens
willislistens thumbnail
willislistens - again - fuckin beautiful
Ron Bronson
Ron Bronson thumbnail
Ron Bronson Seriously my favorite album in 2022 and I didn't even hear it until October. Favorite track: Nigga Won't Reach Mars.
Alango
Alango thumbnail
Alango INCREDIBLE.The production, the words, the flow, the story telling. Favourite album of 2022 Favorite track: At All.
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  • Poster/Print + Digital Album

    Celebrating Contour's incredible album 'Onwards' with two exclusive show posters for New York City and London, beautifully crafted high quality print:

    - A1-sized poster (LARGE) printed on 150gsm matte Munken Pure Rough Cream
    - Photography by Gabriel Morivera
    - Poster Design by Errol and Alex Rita
    - Printed by Pressision
    - Shipped out in heavy-duty, plastic-free poster tubes

    - A1-sized poster printed on 150gsm matte Munken Pure Rough Cream
    - Photography by Gabriel Morivera
    - Poster Design by Errol and Alex Rita
    - Printed by Pressision
    - Shipped out in heavy-duty, plastic-free poster tubes

    Includes unlimited streaming of Onwards! via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    edition of 50 
    Purchasable with gift card

      £22 GBP or more 

     

  • Poster/Print + Digital Album

    Celebrating Contour's incredible album 'Onwards' with two exclusive show posters for New York City and London, beautifully crafted and high quality print:

    - A1-sized poster (LARGE) printed on 150gsm matte Munken Pure Rough Cream
    - Photography by Gabriel Morivera
    - Poster Design by Errol and Alex Rita
    - Printed by Pressision
    - Shipped out in heavy-duty, plastic-free poster tubes

    Includes unlimited streaming of Onwards! via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £22 GBP or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      £10 GBP  or more

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    12" vinyl version of Contour's 'Onwards!' pressed on black vinyl and with incredibly beautiful artwork shot by Gabriel Rivera.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Onwards! via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £16 GBP or more 

     

  • October 12 2022 - Pushing Back The Dark: A Poetry Reading at HOME
    Ticket

    On October 12, Khari Lucas (aka Contour) and Touching Bass present an intimate evening of poetry with Asmaa Jama, Brother Portrait and S*an D. Henry-Smith at Ronan Mckenzie’s HOME gallery space.

    Both a celebration of Khari’s forthcoming project ‘Onwards!’ under his Contour alias, and also an ode to words, gathering and shared experiences. The title ‘Pushing Back The Dark’ takes its inspiration from Quincy Troupe’s poem of the same name.

    Copies of Khari’s ‘Onwards!’ lyric book will be available to buy on the night.

    Doors at 6pm.

    Contour 'Onwards'— Release Show, Oct. 9 @ Below Stone Nest: dice.fm/partner/touching-bass-ltd/event/lr57b

    Asmaa Jama:
    Asmaa Jama is a Somali artist + poet and filmmaker based in England. Asmaa has been commended for the Brunel African Poetry Prize, shortlisted for the Wasafiri Writing Prize, the New Poets Prize and James Berry Poetry prize and longlisted in the National Poetry Competition. Asmaa’s a Cave Canem 2021 Fellow. Asmaa has been published in places like Poetry Review, The Good Journal, Ambit, Ballast and Magma. They are a resident artist at Somerset House Studios.

    Brother Portrait:
    Brother Portrait is a writer and artist - his words falling into form in poetry, prose, travel writing and music. He is a believer in the importance of cultural production, expression and archiving. Of writing to find and see oneself.

    Khari Lucas:
    Khari Lucas is a composer and writer/songwriter whose practice that reaches into several disciplines, including radio, film, and journalism.  His work explores such themes as self-exploration, self determination, love and its iterations, isolation, and black cultural context.

    His forthcoming record ‘Onwards!’ is set for release through London’s Touching Bass on Oct 7.

    S*an D. Henry-Smith:
    S*an D. Henry-Smith is a collaborative practitioner working primarily in poetry and photography, and by extension, performance and publishing. They are the author of Body Text, Flotsam Suite: a strange and precarious life, or how we chronicled the little disasters & I won’t leave the dance floor til it’s out of my system, Wild Peach, the co-author (alongside Imani Elizabeth Jackson) of Consider the Tongue, and the director of Lunar New Year.
    ... more

    Sold Out

  • Bundle: 12" Vinyl & Lyric Book w photography by Gabriel Rivera

    The 'Onwards!' bundle includes:
    - 12" vinyl version of Contour's 'Onwards!' pressed on black vinyl and with incredibly beautiful artwork shot by Gabriel Rivera.
    - A5-sized 34 pages lyric book containing all lyrics from 'Onwards' alongside exclusive additional poems and photographs by Gabriel Rivera

    Art Direction by Alex Rita, Errol and Contour
    Graphic design by Brian O'Tuama

    Includes unlimited streaming of Onwards! via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

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Skin Closure 02:51
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Babe Brother 02:57
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Eke No More 02:03
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12.
At All 02:49

about

South Carolina-based artist, Contour, arrives on London's Touching Bass with 'Onwards!' — an evocative, twelve-track journey through black art both past and contemporary with soul, electronics and archival material at its core.

“The record exists as a bridge in conversation between today’s artists and art of the past which offered potential ways to navigate the world that we’re in; personally or on a larger scale” says Contour.

Shared today is “Hearing Voices", the first single which “explores the relationship between our conditions of living and working and how we process or fail to process them”. Contour directed the accompanying music video, a filmic performance seemingly set in a work study. The single is about how work can sever “our connection to intuition”.

Khari Lucas describes himself as multifaceted, including musician, score composer, film and radio programmer within his universe of practice. Contour — the musical alias he started in 2014 — is the vessel for his musical research, songwriting and production.

'Onwards!' arrives in October 2022, following on from 'Weight (2020)' and 'Love Suite (2021)'. Both previous records were impressive calling cards for the now 27-year-old, diving deep into a rich and incredibly vivid imagination set to a blueprint influenced by soul, hip-hop and psychedelic rock but moving way beyond. This third body of work serves as an expansion of his songwriting ability, both lyrically and thematically, through and beyond autobiographical expression.

During 2020, Khari spent a lot of time reading works from poets, writers, and theorists involved in the black arts movement. Films, including many from the L.A Rebellion movement of the 80s, became a recurring source of inspiration. As did a recently purchased Roland SP-404 originally intended for organising samples, which turned into his personal audio diary populated by a multitude of sound bites.

Using this vast pool as a foundation, alongside additional samples and select co-production from collaborators Swarvy and 10.4 ROG, 'Onwards!' blossomed into Khari’s most accomplished synthesis of sample-based production and the direction his songwriting skills were already moving in.

This project comes from the emotional exploration and metabolization of the media he consumed during this time. It encapsulates his digestion of the intersection of political and emotional realities. Via soundbites and references, he places art ancestors and influences in conversation with his work.

Outside of this latest offering, Khari has collaborated with visionary black fashion house, Telfar, to launch their Black Camo line, co-directed/edited (Fresh Rain, 2021) and scored (Half-Day, 2022; One Magenta Afternoon, 2022) film, and is a seasoned resident artist. Most recently for New York’s non-profit cultural centre Pioneer Works, NTS Radio’s WIP programme and as a guest curator for the New York-based art publisher and performance space, Montez Press Radio.

As Contour, he has supported contemporary musicians including MNDSGN, Toro Y Moi and keiyaA.

His monthly hosted radio show on dublab is a curatorial exercise called Footprints in the Dark. A two-hour exploration of a single black artist and a means for making one part of his research practice public. He has also guested on London’s NTS Radio and New York’s The Lot among others.

credits

released October 7, 2022

All tracks written, composed and arranged by Khari Lucas
Production/Mixing: Swarvy (1, 3, & 10)
Co-production: 10.4ROG (Tracks 2, 4, 11, & 12)
Additional Instrumentation/Vocals: Omari Jazz, Silentjay (Track 5); recorded at Ringgo's Crib
Mastering: Kasablanka Mastering
Photography: Gabriel Rivera
Art Direction Contour, Alex Rita
Graphic Design: Alex Rita, Errol
Layout: Jefferson Harris
Executive Production: Touching Bass

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