Multi-Mercury Prize nominated artist Kate Tempest will return next month with her new album, The Book of Traps and Lessons. Produced by Rick Rubin and Dan Carey, the 11-track effort is due out June 14th. Previously, the spoken word rapper dug into the Origins of the LP’s lead single, “Firesmoke”. Now Tempest’s delivered another sample with “Holy Elixir”.
Like much of Tempest’s music, “Holy Elixir” is a meditative examination of life, only this time it’s all life. The song opens with her imagining the earliest people, the hunters and gatherers, over a simple and primal rhythm. By the end, jazzy piano notes add to the throbbing beat as the artist turns her lyrical vivisection to modern pains.
Explaining the thrust of the song in a press release, the rapper said,
“‘Holy Elixir’ was written as a kind of incantation. A psychedelic trip back to the beginning and deep into the present. It happens at a crucial point within the body of the album. It’s the penultimate moment. Taken out of that context, it stands on its own here.”
Take a listen to “Holy Elixir” below. Pre-orders for Kate Tempest’s The Book of Traps and Lessons are going on now.
