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Childqueen

by Kadhja Bonet

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Dominique Cyprès
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Dominique Cyprès The first time I heard the solemn opening bars of "Procession," I knew Childqueen was unlike any music I'd heard before. Kadhja Bonet infuses beautiful, slow funk and soul sounds with an almost druidic, Enya-like sense of mystery, with lyrical themes that range from gestures toward unspoken interpersonal truths to the ancient secrets of the forest. For me the stand-out track is "Delphine," an aching, scintillating ballad that I would currently rank as my favorite love song ever. Favorite track: Delphine.
Emil Sayfullin
Emil Sayfullin thumbnail
Emil Sayfullin This extraordinary, extraterrestrial album stands beyond any attempt to give a clear description. It’s far beyond…

Just let Kadhja Bonet haunt your heart. Let it be. Favorite track: Mother Maybe.
Jberbicus98
Jberbicus98 thumbnail
Jberbicus98 To summarize this amazing album. It's the sound so cosmic and ever-sweeping, it's like your looking through the visor of an astronaut and seeing the cosmos sonically. I really wished I had heard this in 2018, because this album really blew my mind.
If there were an artist to make an amazing soundtrack to a Sci Fi Epic, Kadhja Bonet would be the person for it. Favorite track: Delphine.
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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Childqueen via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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      $12 USD or more 

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

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

      $18 USD or more 

     

  • Ltd. Edition Flume 12" Vinyl + Digital
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Found some limited edition flume color vinyl - for sale here while supplies last

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

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  • Ltd. Edition Peach 12" Vinyl w/ Bonus 7" + Digital
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Ltd. Bandcamp Edition Peach 12" Vinyl and a Bonus 7" with 2 new bonus tracks, exclusive to the 7". 7" comes in clear sleeve

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

    Sold Out

  • Ltd. Edition Peach 12" Vinyl + Digital
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

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

    Sold Out

1.
Procession 02:52
2.
Childqueen 03:11
3.
4.
Delphine 05:54
5.
6.
Joy 04:07
7.
Wings 04:03
8.
Mother Maybe 04:15
9.
Second Wind 04:08

about

Childqueen is something of a Hero's Quest. In the opening "Procession," above a muted drummer's march, an unseen oracle announces to you, the listener: "every morning is a chance to renew, a chance to renew." This is your first clue, setting you on a path to what Kadhja has christened the "childqueen," that innermost self that you were truthfully and instinctively before the weight of the world came crashing in. As with her 2016 debut The Visitor, the songs on Childqueen are never casual, never ditties. Instead, they invite us into a world not wholly our own, a half-mythical atmosphere where past and future meet in a parallel, yet faraway, present. Acting as a sort of diffuse chanteuse, Kadhja's achingly lovely voice achieves what can only be described as "ambient song." Particularly in songs like "Delphine" and "Nostalgia," we hear the jazzier intricacies of the vocal melodies brushed soft at the edges, at times so soft they vaporize into pure mood, or merge with other instruments or with backing vocals that seem to emanate from celestials bodies. And the instruments— played mostly by the polymathic Bonet herself— mix the cinematically and classically orchestral with the noticeably more synthetic. On tracks like "Thoughts Around Tea" or "Another Time Lover," flutes, violins, guitars, drums, and bells share or trade the stage with acousmatic warbles, whooshes, and lines, each gently couching the contours of the others. By combining softer enchantments with an ever-listenable experimentalism, Kadhja has created a soundscape the listener sinks into, unplaceable in genre and decade from beginning to end.

Despite its soft tones, despite its listenability, Childqueen challenges us as much as Kadhja's self-description: "I don't like calling myself an artist. I don't like calling myself a singer— or even a musician." This isn’t just paradox. Kadhja came to music early through a maniacally rigorous classical training in her childhood, mastering the violin and viola, in addition to picking up the flute, guitar, and formal composition. But she abandoned classical music for wilder groves, and credits what she now creates as springing from a place of intuition and candid self-reflection rather than theory or her academic past. The Kadhja that leads us through Childqueen is unyielding, truth-seeking, and even mildly misanthropic, dismayed by humanity's talent for self-deception. She urges us to do better. These urges may come in rebuffs to our daily thoughtlessness, from the possible love sacrificed to business sense in "Thoughts Around Tea" to the caustic calls from the title track: "what's the matter, don't you got a man, to tell you what you're worth to him? Where you been at Childqueen?" At other points, her tone turns imploring, as in "Delphine," or encouraging as in "Second Wind" which serves to remind "sometimes I forget, moss grows from my lips. I am fertile. I am rich. I am moist and mineral."

The lyrics and melodic lines nudge us along a path of self-discovery— or act as breadcrumbs along her own path. Everything that you hear on Childqueen was created by Kadhja, who has always produced all her own music, insisting on a total vision that is nearly as difficult to co-create as a dream. She does confess: "this record crushed my ego, and I'm surprised I'm still alive." Nevertheless, music remains for Kadhja Bonet a primarily solitary activity, one in which she can tender a connection with that innermost self, the childqueen. The rest of the world, if it pleases, is welcome to listen in, and join her quest.

credits

released June 8, 2018

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Kadhja Bonet Los Angeles, California

(sounds like) Kad-ya was born in 1784 in the backseat of a sea-foam green space pinto. After spending an extraordinarily long time in her mothers plasma, she discovered the joys and gratifications of making noise with her hands and face while traveling at maximum velocity through intergalactic jungle quadrants. She is currently arranging her debut album, and hopes you will join her on a journey ♥ ... more

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