PIERRE KWENDERS ANNOUNCES DELUXE EDITION OF 2022 POLARIS MUSIC PRIZE-WINNING ALBUM, JOSÉ LOUIS AND THE PARADOX OF LOVE, OUT JUNE 30, 2023 ON ARTS & CRAFTS
LISTEN / SHARE / BUY / STREAM “SMT” HERE
PRE-ORDER JOSÉ LOUIS AND THE PARADOX OF LOVE DELUXE LP HERE
PLAYING SELECT NORTH AMERICAN & EUROPEAN FESTIVALS THIS SUMMER
“His every song summons an international midnight.” — The New Yorker
Photo Credit : Jøe Ekonen // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
Pierre Kwenders, the “arresting Congolese Canadian musician whose scramble of genres, languages, and worlds sounds like the future” (The New Yorker), last year released his deeply personal and innovative album José Louis And The Paradox Of Love on Arts & Crafts, going on to win the coveted 2022 Polaris Music Prize awarded to the Best Canadian Album.
Fresh off two stints of touring North America in support of the album, including a stop at KEXP, Kwenders today announces a deluxe edition of José Louis And The Paradox of Love, out June 30, 2023 on Arts & Crafts, and presents its lead single, “SMT”. José Louis And The Paradox of Love Deluxe features three brand new songs—“SMT”, “Niata”, and “Good”— along with “Vibraçao”, a reworked version of original album standout, “Heartbeat”, this time featuring Sarah Kalume. In conjunction with today’s announcement, Kwenders also announces a run of festival dates in North America and Europe. A full list of dates are below.
Lifted from the recording sessions of José Louis, “SMT” is an infectious dancefloor track that is both a love letter to and an intervention with social media. An acronym for Social Media Therapy, “SMT” sees Kwenders calling out the magic and the pitfalls of total connectivity. Kenders sings in his signature blend of English, French, and Lingala over a minimal soca-inflected beat with melodious flourishes courtesy of the international production trio of PEDRO (Portugal), ESQO (Chile), and CarloMarco (Chile).
“‘SMT’ calls for a reflection on our use of social media networks and rather good or bad we must question its effects,” says Kwenders. “At this moment in time, social media has taken an important place in our day-to-day lives. As beneficial as it may be, we can find ourselves trapped - what happens online also affects us in real life. Nonetheless, it has become a problem solver, an outlet for joy, pain and communication. It makes us laugh, cry, support, look down upon, and apologize endlessly. After all that we do it all again. The online wailing wall or maybe the Goliath of our generation. Social media therapy is what we need. Social media therapy is a necessity.”
Born in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kwenders borrows his stage name from his late grandfather, a widely respected businessman and community figure. Following his mother’s footsteps, in 2001 Kwenders immigrated from Congo to Montreal. José Louis and the Paradox of Love is a culmination of personal growth and the musical dexterity Kwenders has honed over the years, converging his strong songwriting capabilities with the bravado he possesses as a DJ. The album explores an ongoing search to grasp the universal complexities of romance, sometimes through the lens of Kwenders’ own intimate experiences. The songs were written and recorded over the span of four years, and the album is symbolically titled after his birth name, José Louis Modabi. Through different moments of tension and release, romantic narratives of beauty and disaster are packed into powerful poetic musical vignettes.
JOSÉ LOUIS AND THE PARADOX OF LOVE DELUXE TRACKLIST:
1. L.E.S (Liberté Égalité Sagacité) (Feat. King Britt)
2. Your Dream (Feat. Ngabo)
3. No No No
4. Imparfait (Feat. Sônge)
5. Papa Wemba
6. Religion Désir
7. SMT
8. Makambo Ya Gaga (Skit)
9. Heartbeat (Feat. Anaiis)
10. Kilimanjaro
11. Niata
12. Coupé
13. Sahara
14. Radio trottoir - Interlude
15. Good
16. Church (Likambo)
17. Vibraçao (Feat. Sarah Kalume)
PIERRE KWENDERS TOUR DATES
Mar 24 - Garage Noord, Amsterdam, Netherlands *
Mar 25 - Couleur Café club, Brussels, Belgium *
Mar 31 - Village Ki-yi, Abidjan, Ivory Coast *
Jul 21 - Colours of Ostrava, Czech Republic
Jul 2 - Festivoix, Trois Rivière, Quebec
Jul 9 - Winnipeg, MB @ Winnipeg Folk Festival (Birds Hill Provincial Park)
More Festivals TBA
* dj set with Moonshine
BUY / STREAM JOSÉ LOUIS AND THE PARADOX OF LOVE
“HEARTBEAT” (FEAT. ANAIIS) VIDEO
"YOUR DREAM" (FEAT. NGABO) STREAM
PRAISE FOR JOSÉ LOUIS AND THE PARADOX OF LOVE
“[José Louis And The Paradox Of Love is] an endlessly listenable album that combines pop, R&B and electronic music with melodic vocals delivered in a mixture of Lingala, French, English, Tshiluba and Kikongo.” — The New York Times’ T Magazine
“[José Louis and the Paradox of Love is] a fluid, immersive work, vast but cohesive, elusive of genre, border, or trend.” — Rolling Stone
“Since his 2014 debut LP Le Dernier Empereur Bantou, Pierre Kwenders has been an invaluable force in Canadian music with his experimental and playful approach to Congolese rumba.” — The FADER
“Kwenders draws on and reassembles Black musical diasporic forms to exhilarating effect.”
— Complex, “The Best Canadian Albums of 2022”
“A beguiling mix of multilingual Afropop, rhumba and R&B.” — The Guardian
"Kwenders exudes a poetic warmth that's hard to resist." — MOJO
“The sounds go beyond electronic to include Congolese rumba, pop, R&B and spectacular moments of jazz that completely overwhelm the senses. … a wonderland of rich textures.” — CBC Music
“Kwenders’s music is transportive, beguiling, and emotionally relatable” — Bandcamp
“Written across multiple cities and countries, the songs on this emotional opus range from festive to spiritual, carefully reflecting the artist's present outlook on the world.” — Exclaim
"Inventive and heartfelt, a brilliant use of many genre conventions that respects them all but bows to none. Kwenders isn’t simply blazing a narrow trail here but opening up a cosmos." — PopMatters
“Rooted in a free-floating Congolese rumba-inflected electronic sound, José Louis and Paradox of Love is full of loose grooves and feather-light hooks.” — Loud And Quiet
“This Congolese-born, Montreal-based artist’s third album is a well-crafted, groove-driven blend of Congolese rumba, R&B and various electronic styles, combining bright synths, propulsive rhythms, occasional ringing guitars and soaring horns with buoyant melodies and multilingual lyrics.” — KEXP
“...the songs showcase him singing and rapping in Lingala, French, English, Tshiluba, and Kikongo over skittering programmed beats complemented at times by jazzy sax, rumba guitar, plucked mbira, and guest vocalists and producers from around the world.” — Washington City Paper