LEMFRECK opens a new chapter with the single I KNEW, ahead of CRYOGENICS

LEMFRECK released I KNEW on 28 August, the first single from the mixtape CRYOGENICS, which arrives on 25 September through Noctown.

The song is a glazed, 80s-leaning sophisti-pop lament about the end of a relationship that defined a stretch of his life, and its structure follows the argument it is having with itself. It opens almost smugly, on the certainty of having called it, and then that certainty comes apart.

He described the idea as "reaching the end of a relationship and realising that, deep down, you knew from the beginning" it was heading there, and said the point of the song is what happens next: being right does not make you feel any better, and you did not want to be right in the first place.

CRYOGENICS builds outward from the polemical feel of BLOOD, SWEAT & FEARS, the 2022 project that established him. The mixtape is framed as a live radio broadcast called NOCTOWN FM, with presenter-style commentary, guests and conversations threaded between the songs rather than dropped around them.

The concept is doing a job beyond the framing device. LEMFRECK has said he wants the project to show the breadth of UK Black music and the artists mainstream spaces tend to skip, and a station format lets him put a range of voices on one record without turning it into a compilation.

He files under hip-hop and pop, and the CRYOGENICS date is logged on the release calendar.