THE TITLE TRACK FROM THE EP FEATURING KAE TEMPEST IS OUT NOW – LISTEN HERE

THE EP ALSO FEATURES GUEST APPEARANCES FROM BIG PIIG & TOMI

World renowned producer, songwriter and musician Fraser T Smith has today revealed the details of his brand-new Future Utopia EP We Were We Still Are, out on 9 June via The Orchard/70Hz. The title track from the EP, featuring spoken word performer and poet Kae Tempest is out now and the EP is available to pre-order from 31 March.


Watch a brand-new live performance of We Were We Still Are, featuring Kae here. 

Speaking about the EP and the new single, Fraser says:

‘We Were We Still Are’ is about progression through time and space – what we keep hold of and what we leave behind. I wanted my next body of work to encapsulate a lot of the elements of my first album, the experimental chords, the warm 70’s aesthetic and the collaborations but also to show some progress as an artist. This has been a huge turning point for me creatively. I’ve wanted to work with Kae Tempest for years and finally got the opportunity on the title track. Kae’s lyrical dexterity and flow knocked me sideways on this track and the subsequent interlude. It sets up the EP in a hugely confident, uplifting way’.

The EP also includes Your Love with Irish singer and rapper BiiG PiiG, This Time which sees Fraser singing lead vocals for the first time on a Future Utopia release and Make It Home featuring Tomi. Speaking about these tracks, Fraser explains:

‘Working with BiiG PiiG was a great experience. We originally wrote ‘Your Love’ over an electronic beat, but I felt the message was getting lost, so I toned the track down to let the song breathe. ‘This Time’ is a song I wrote in Las Vegas. There’s a ‘Paris Texas’ desert like theme running through a lot of my new music with the Americana guitars and Washington style breaks I’m using. The song is about not pushing your luck at the tables… Being able to walk away while you’re ahead. ‘Make It Home’ came from a session a few years ago with the incredible artist Tomi. We wrote this in a day and spent most of the time laughing and joking. I’d never forgotten the track and really wanted to reimagine it for a Future Utopia release. The lyrics feel poignant for the last track on the EP where we come full circle back to where it all began.’

Fraser T Smith is a multi-award winning, internationally acclaimed artist, producer, songwriter and musician – one of the most in demand creators in contemporary music today. He has co-written, mixed and produced 7 Number One singles in the UK, 2 Billboard Number One singles in the US, and contributed to 18 Number 1 albums. Having spent most of his career producing and songwriting for some of the biggest artists in the world (Adele, Stormzy, Sam Smith, Florence and the Machine, Drake, Gorillaz, Kano, Dave and more) he released his own debut album, 12 Questions, in October 2020, under the moniker ‘Future Utopia’. 12 Questions features an incredible roll call of some of Britain’s most vital and brilliant artists, including Stormzy, Dave, Kano, Ghetts, Bastille, Es Devlin, Simon Armitage and Idris Elba and discusses issues including faith, freedom, race, gender, wealth, equality and ecology.

In 2021 Fraser won the Ivor Novello Award for ‘Best Contemporary Song’ for Children Of The Internet, his collaboration with Dave, taken from 12 Questions. The win is the latest plaudit for a creative partnership between Smith and Dave that has seen the pair win two previous Ivor Novello Awards, first in 2018 with ‘Best Contemporary Song’ for Dave’s Question Time, before they went on to win the prestigious prize again in 2020 for Dave’s track Black (from the Mercury Prize winning album Psychodrama), which they also performed together at The BRIT Awards in 2020.

At the same time Fraser released 12 Questions, he also launched his own independent record label – 70Hz. After mentoring South London based singer and fellow Ivors winner Mysie as part of the Ivors Rising Star Award, Fraser signed her to the label. Emmeline is the most recent artist to join 70Hz. She released her debut EP in October 2022 and has already been tipped by the likes of The Guardian as ‘One to Watch’ for 2023.

Fraser recently co-produced Kasabian’s album The Alchemist’s Euphoria with the band’s frontman Serge Pizzorno and played in the live band for a series of dates, including Kasabian’s guest slot at Liam Gallagher’s Knebworth gigs.

Future Utopia’s new single We Were We Still Are featuring Kae Tempest is out now. The EP of the same name is released on 9 June.

We Were We Still Are tracklist:

We Were We Still Are – Future Utopia ft. Kae Tempest

We Were We Still Are (Interlude) – Future Utopia ft. Kae Tempest

Your Love – Future Utopia ft. Biig Piig

This Time – Future Utopia

Make It Home – Future Utopia ft. Tomi

20.01.23