Canadian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer KAIS (Kais Khoury) takes the complexities of the human condition as inspiration for his fusionist sound that sonically melds indie, psych, soul-infused blues, rock, and folk. At the outset of his career, he addressed global topics before exploring the drab difficulties and profound beauty of being human. As a lover of the metaphysical, KAIS’ work consists of finding the balance between natural inclinations and the demands in an ego-driven late-stage capitalist world. In 2014, he took part in the Mayor of London Big Busk and graduated with a diploma in Music Production and Sound Engineering. He toured Vancouver, Toronto, and Seattle with a full band in 2016 and 2017, received an honorary mention in the 2016 International Songwriting Competition, a Canadian Best Out of Province nomination at the 13th Annual Toronto Independent Music Awards and a Lyrics Finalist position in the 2017 USA Songwriting Competition. In 2020, KAIS joined the London Indie sync licensing roster, North Note; in 2021, he was interviewed by BBC Radio London host Robert Elms for his 2018 single ‘Take me Home’
In his most vulnerably powerful single to date, the Cyprus-based artist and producer KAIS veered into a more soulful psych-infused indie-folk territory. The acoustic recording of his single, Healing, consists of little more than KAIS’ artful indie-folk vocals and the resonance from the complex time signatures of the strummed and finger-picked acoustic guitar notes. Yet, the stripped-back track gave the trauma-exploring lyrical brevity more room to breathe and allowed the guitar progressions that carry reminiscence to the fretwork of Elliott Smith, Daughter, Fink, and Ben Howard to deliver concentrated and succinct alchemy. Every note registers as a meta extension of his spiritual mission to awaken, console and guide his audience. Healing was recorded and produced at KAIS’ studio, Hot Soap Studios, engineered and mixed by Andreas Matheou, and mastered by Brock McFarlane from CPS mastering in
Vancouver. KAIS plans to follow this release with his forthcoming EP, due for official release in February 2022.
KAIS said: “Healing is a deep resonance of something that I’ve been feeling for a while with struggles that have leeched at my lifeblood. Life can be messy, exhausting, and real – we are all facing the intensity of our struggles in different ways. I wanted to paint that picture in my song with reference to three literally / metaphorically anatomical processes within the reality of struggling itself; Bleeding, Breathing, Healing.”
Amelia Vandergast at A&R Factory said: KAIS’ ever-evolving sound isn’t something that you can ever grow accustomed to. There has always been a fundamental sense of spirituality in his sound, something REAL to
connect with. Healing’s stripped-back vulnerability amplifies the emotion he conveys with the intent of extending compassion to anyone going through a journey of healing (so that is pretty much all of us).
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