Darshae Kiér found music more or less by accident. He was a kid in foster care, he’d lost his mum, and somewhere in all the moving between homes he ended up at a piano and pressed a key. Then another one. Most of us got as far as a recorder at primary school and quietly gave up. He kept going.
That was a long time ago now. Kiér is based in Miami these days, writing, singing and producing what he calls cinematic pop, and his new single ‘This Path’ (out since 18 September) feels like the most outward-looking thing he’s put his name to so far.
It’s a dance-pop record, which surprised us a little given the backstory. The production is electronic and high-energy and it properly moves. The lyric is doing something quieter underneath, though. In his own notes on the song he describes it as the space where “the road behind us still carries its weight, but no longer gets to decide what comes next”, which is a decent summary of most people’s twenties, if we’re being honest.
He’s keen to say the song isn’t really about him, either. “‘This Path’ may begin with Darshae,” he writes. “Where it leads is yours.” You could roll your eyes at that, and fair enough, artists say this sort of thing all the time. His catalogue sort of backs it up, mind. ‘Velvet Damage’, ‘Ride With You’ and ‘Level Up’ each picked a feeling and stuck with it, and this one sounds like the point where he stopped explaining himself and started inviting people in.
Is it the song that changes your week? Maybe, maybe not. It runs three minutes and fifteen seconds, which is about how long it takes to decide whether you’re actually going to send that email. We’d put it on and find out.
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