Sheff’s Kitchen comes back with this soul-searching, meditative cut that turns thinking about things into a fine art. “Dark Rooms,” centred on the creative alchemy between UK rising star Knell Rashad and critically acclaimed Nigerian-born producer (Kenju), asks if truth can be found in silence, shadows or even spaces unnoticed. It’s the sound of looking for light when so much of the world can feel dim.
The lyricism of Knell Rashad is poetic, and it is probing; she puts us in thoughts and feelings. His voice is a runner of consciousness, thoughtful but also, from ear to ear, casual and deep. Every verse is about the importance of awakening; it's talking directly to you from within. And it’s not the words themselves; it’s how he believes them at a time when so many other people do not.
Kenju’s version activates the notion in its raw rhythmic shape. Weaving a thick sonic quilt, drawing on the boom bap sounds of the early ‘90s, is an added spiritual dimension to what at times could feel like wistful nostalgia. And on the drums he lunged with intent even as melodies rippled and quasistatic harmonies shimmered, and syncopation lured you into a hypnotic swoon in which sound and silence were inseparable nothingness.
Knell Rashad and Kenju are a cornucopia of consciousness: more than just a pair. ‘Dark Rooms’ The pop-up experience transforms chaos into a form of clarity. In his expressively ornery beats, Sheff’s Kitchen is cooking up something that is all too scarce: music that nurtures not just the SOUL but also “the THINKING PART,” reminding us of Nina Simone’s axiomatic supposition from 1966 that even in blackness light persists and taking it as a command.