He has been, by and large, a musical master of understatement throughout his career, so for Michael Kiwanuka to call his fourth album Small Changes seems true to form. That said, the London-born musician has enjoyed some big moments in the sun more recently, most notably when his superb 2019 album, Kiwanuka, deservedly won the Mercury Prize and even clocked up a Grammy nomination for best rock album (something of a miscategorisation, considering it was dappled with the retro 1970s-soul sound that he has plundered all the way through his career).
Following up your biggest album may seem like a gargantuan task for some, but Kiwanuka’s approach is mostly one of assured nonchalance. As the title suggests, there are only some minor tweaks to what came before, most significantly in his lyrical direction. Much of the material on the 37-year-old’s previous albums dealt with identity, anxiety and wider topics such as race, but Small Changes comes in the wake of some big changes in Kiwanuka’s personal life; since his last album was released he has become a father twice over and decamped from the hustle of his native London to the calmer surrounds of Southampton.
With that in mind, there is a notable focus on relationships throughout Small Changes. Many songs are riddled with self-doubt and insecurity, embracing the object of his affection as a steadying force in his life. The title track is an out-and-out love song that recounts the tentative early days of a relationship; One and Only notes how he was someone who “‘chased the waterfalls / I was the leaving kind” – perhaps referring to the transient life of a touring musician – until his partner provided him with a haven to return to. Stand by My Side and Live for Your Love take a similar slant, the latter taking accountability for his past transgressions: “‘Over and over again, I left you cold / Over and over, you take me back,” he sings. “I live for your love.”
Reteaming with the production team of Danger Mouse – aka Brian Burton – and Inflo for the third time is an interesting move. Still, it sounds as if neither party was interested in making a carbon copy of what came before, and those titular Small Changes can be heard within the music, too.
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While the 1970s soul palette and nods to heroes such as Otis Redding and Bill Withers remain indelible elements of Kiwanuka’s sound, he has also cited less obvious touchpoints for this record, many of them intriguing for a so-called soul artist. They include Gene Clark’s 1974 album No Other, its small-hours intimacy felt on Live for Your Love and the title track. Other influences included Beth Gibbons of Portishead, Sade and even Mazzy Star, whose track Fade into You was apparently an inspiration on the album’s meandering closing track, Four Long Years.
Several songs, including the opener, Floating Parade, have a chic, sultry bassline straight out of an Air (or perhaps Serge Gainsbourg) song. There are some new names in the album credits, too: the legendary producer Jimmy Jam, the prolific session bassist Pino Palladino (The Who, Nine Inch Nails, D’Angelo) and the octogenarian drummer James Gadson (best known for his work with the aforementioned Withers) all feature.
For all the well-crafted material on offer, however, Kiwanuka sometimes seems to run out of road. He has mentioned how this album was about “stripping everything away and building it back up”, but it often feels that such gutting of songs is at the expense of dynamism within the tracklist, as heard on the humdrum Follow Your Dreams.
There are, of course, several exceptions to that quibble. Rebel Soul is a highlight, its downbeat jazzy piano riff taking the listener on a journey through self-doubt and recrimination. The whirling psych-soul chug of Lowdown Part I is at odds with its maudlin lyrics; Lowdown Part II is an instrumental with impressive guitar soloing, a sumptuous string arrangement and a vague nod to Afrobeat.
It seems that Kiwanuka’s main objective this time around was to burrow deeper into the niche that he has forged, testing its boundaries without necessarily exploring new territory. It’s a comfortable place to be, but it also sounds as if something more significant than small changes were required to match the vim and exhilaration of its predecessor. Still, the idea of where he might go next is what’s tantalising.
