A live session being performed in your room, in your ears, just for the pleasure of the one playing and the one listening: throughout Lewisham-born & raised composer cktrl’s yield there’s a sense of privacy, something even beyond intimacy, like a one way see-through veil, that doesn’t take away from the universal feeling of the sound he had set up to convey from the start.
“[The story behind yield is] realizing that my actions affect others. It sparked an understanding of karmic energy and how guilt can be the cause of projecting. We can be at our highest or lowest vibration and still need to show up for ourselves and others. All the while carrying baggage we haven’t yet healed from. ‘yield’ is about surrendering to yourself and harvesting the best from yourself no matter where you are in your life” (FF Mixtape #183: Multi-instrumentalist cktrl curates a meditative tracklist, friendsoffriends.com).
As cktrl, Bradly Miller made his debut in 2015 with Forest, a self-release, as are yield and his previous EP, Zero (2022). His journey is best-described as a circle, an ouroboros: after learning to play the clarinet and the saxophone, he taught himself how to produce, which led him to compose electronic music, ranging from experimental, glitchy tracks to R&B infused with hints of UK garage, house and reggae derived from his experience growing up in Lewisham’s Jamaican community. With yield he more explicitly returns to his instrumental training and shows us a contemporary perspective towards jazz, accompanied by Ophie’s ethereal vocals and an orchestra of woodwinds, pianos, strings and life itself emerging in all its beauty from the shadows of an often inhospitable world.
“Say you don’t love me anymore / Cue the celebration on the kitchen floor / Say you’re not mine and I’m not yours / Bitter separation“, this is how the lyrics begin in love + war. Everyday life and love, that doesn’t mean possession in either case: my love isn’t just mine, my life isn’t just mine, it’s you and me and us and them, they slip like sand through fingers, but sand has the ability to always stick with us all the same (bitter separation).
A radical optimism woven with a melancholia that sometimes feels like an abyss, a burden – and then the realization that we can, should and must carry it together, learn to dance under its weight until it falls from our shoulder. yield feels like a musical “I see you”. We hope this record reaches your heart as much as it did ours!
British musician, multi-instrumentalist, producer and DJ cktrl returns with the release of his new EP ‘Yield’. Born from a desire to change the narrative around contemporary Black British music, the boundary-pushing musician aims with this project to prioritise the art of bonafide musicianship. A stark departure from cktrl’s previous work, ‘Yield’ is a celestial and palpably more inward body of work that harkens back to the pre-electric age of modal jazz while simultaneously pulling in elements from the disciplines of classical and baroque music.
Speaking on the project’s sonic identity, cktrl says: “I want to be able to show that you can make things from scratch again that have that feeling and beauty without having to sample an old record. Even though that’s an art-form within itself, I want to show raw orchestration and instrumentation can be the sole source” The origins of the title came from a period where cktrl was looking to find solace in himself after an introspective period of grief and heartbreak. As an intentionally instrumental project with minimal vocals, cktrl wants prospective listeners to see these new songs as guided meditations where they can wholly insert themselves in it. Eliciting and reaping whatever feelings come to the fore. Speaking on what ‘Yield’ means to him as a concept, cktrl explains: “Some people who I’ve asked to define the word ‘yield’ have looked at it from a harvest point of view, whereas others have seen it as something to submit to, to render, like you’re giving up yourself. I see it as a barometer for how you feel – no matter if you’re at your lowest or your highest vibration, you still need to show up for yourself. You still have to be present. It’s about getting the best from yourself no matter where you are in life” The new project is the follow up to last year’s ‘Zero’ which featured collaborations with esteemed contemporaries like the GRAMMY-nominated Mereba and anaiis. Upon the project’s release, it was met with a plethora of critical acclaim from highly regarded publications and platform such as British Vogue, Dazed, CRACK Magazine, Resident Advisor, NOTION, Harper’s Bazaar and ES Magazine for its sprawling and experimental scope, spanning avant-garde jazz, classical music, alternative R&B and electronica. cktrl has a tune for every occasion: as content making beats by himself at home in Lewisham as he is amongst this generation’s fashion and cultural vanguards. Music has been a part of his life for as long as he can remember: from clarinet lessons throughout his school life to fond memories from his NTS days. Moulded by a unique blend of his West Indian heritage, years of classical training in both the clarinet and saxophone, cktrl strives to do what hasn’t been done before. His approach to creation is decidedly wide-ranging and broad. In fact, where sonic descriptions might fail to encompass the breadth of cktrl’s scope, three words surface when he unpacks his musical aims: freedom, range and feeling. Elsewhere, throughout his career, cktrl has been recognised and heralded by fashion and film VIPs as he firmly embeds himself within the black cultural renaissance emerging here in Britain. Acquiring a global network of creatives that include the late Virgil Abloh, Bianca Saunders, Tremaine Emory, Saul Nash, Maximilian Davis, Ahluwalia, Stephen Isaac Wilson, Sean Frank, Campbell Addy, Ib Kamara and Jenn Nkiru who secured him a cameo in Beyoncé’s ground-breaking film ‘Black Is King’.
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