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Kes The Band To Release Live 2020 Album – WE HOME

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Kees of KES THE BAND 2020
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Icons of soca music and ambassadors of Caribbean culture, Trinidad’s KES deliver their first new full-length album in over five years, the live project We Home out Aug. 28 from Ineffable Records.

The group, also known as KES THE BAND, breathes new life into its catalog of Carnival hits (“Hello,” “Savannah Grass,”) and island pop jams (“Endless Summer,” “Fallin”) on the album, with fresh renditions showcasing their prowess as a live band par excellence

Kes The Band’s New Live Album – WE HOME

Singles from the project will be released weekly leading up to the release of We Home, starting with a new version of “Magic” featuring Jimmy October and Etienne Charles, out this Friday, Aug. 7. The track, originally released as part of the 2020 Trinidad Carnival season, gets a sparkling, organic update showcasing the band’s ability to seamlessly blend genres from calypso and soca to jazz, R&B and rock. Visuals for “Magic,” filmed at The North Deck in Trinidad’s idyllic North Coast, also drop today. 

Soca Ambassadors KES The Band will release their first new full-length album and live project, We Home on Aug 28 +  a 1-hour TV special, KES LIVE on Aug 31.

On Aug. 31 — Trinidad’s Independence Day — KES will present a 1-hour TV special, KES LIVE, airing across nine Caribbean countries in partnership with Trinidad’s TV6. The broadcast will also be simulcast in Africa on Trace TV; on Kes’ YouTube channel, and across the band’s social media pages. 

NEW VIDEO: Kes + Jimmy October feat. Etienne Charles – “Magic”

We Home was created to fill a void for soca music at a time when Covid-19 has put the communal Carnival celebrations and fetes that are the genre’s raison d’etre on pause.

Mixed by renowned engineer Dexter Simmons (Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston), We Home is the first major soca release since the outbreak began, and an effort by KES to create a time capsule of their sound and genre in 2020, while reconnecting with their roots as eclectic performers.

“The live show is key to our entire brand,” vocalist Kees Dieffenthaller (who also goes by KES) says of the group, which has shared stages with acts from John Legend and Major Lazer to Will Smith and Maroon 5. “But the live experience is something we never truly captured before [on record].”

Dieffenthaller brothers are KES THE BAND. They will release their first new full-length album and live project, We Home on Aug 28 + a 1-hour TV special, KES LIVE on Aug 31.

As soca has become largely producer-driven, KES have carried the torch for live music, touring year round and bringing broad influences to the genre, from reggae and rock to afrobeats. Their annual Tuesday on the Rocks concert, held annually during Trinidad Carnival season, is widely celebrated, having expanded recently to New York, Toronto and Guyana. “When we play live, the music translates in such a boundless way — you don’t have to know what soca is, or where we’re from,” Kees says.

VIDEO: KES Performance on BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn!

We Home represents the first foray into soca from Ineffable Music, the multi-faceted Oakland-based music company that owns and operates venues and festivals, including North America’s biggest reggae fest, California Roots; and manages and releases music from artists like Stick Figure and Collie Buddz. It is also the first album by a major soca act on a U.S. record label in over three years. 

“Since launching the label arm of Ineffable, Ineffable Records, one of our main objectives has been to bridge the gap between Caribbean-influenced music coming from the US and artists in the Caribbean,” said Adam Gross, VP of Ineffable Records. “Our goal has been to take everything we’ve learned growing artists here in the US to help artists from the Caribbean crossover into new markets. In soca music, and more specifically in Kes’ music, we see an opportunity to do just that. Kes is the full package. The melodies, the hooks, the top-notch musicianship, the live performance — everything is there.” 

We Home continues a banner year for KES, which launched with a massively successful campaign at Trinidad Carnival in February. The band not only won the annual International Soca Monarch competition — the Super Bowl of Caribbean music — with “Stage Gone Bad” but also captured the coveted Road March title, given to the song played the most during the Carnival parade. “Hello,” originally released in 2017, continues to reach new audiences: It now has the most YouTube plays of any soca track released in the last decade. 

Last modified: August 14, 2020