Kes’ We Home out today

KES is not only the new face of Spotify’s Soca Classics playlist but the band was also selected to cover and lead off YouTube’s Caribbean Pulse playlist. This comes as the band releases its first new full-length album in over five years today.

The album is called We Home and the live project is being released and distributed on US music company, Ineffable Records.

The Oakland-based company is an “independent coalition of artists, managers and promoters that work together to curate music and live events across the world,” its website says.

A media release said Kes’ We Home will see the “band of brothers taking soca music to all the mainstream platforms and media outlets in the US, the UK and via various self-curated and hosted playlists, interviews, performances and promotional appearances.”

The band will move across ‘The Big Apple’ performing as part of Angela Yee Day, a virtual music showcase streaming on The Breakfast Club’s YouTube channel and on mobile truck screens riding through New York City from noon to 8 pm.” This happens on August 28.

On August 31 – Independence Day – the band will present a one hour TV special called Kes Live which will air across ten Caribbean countries in partnership with CCN TV6.

It will also be broadcast on Kes’ YouTube channel and across the band’s social media pages.

The release added that We Home breathes new life into the band’s catalogue of music and shows its prowess as a live band.

The release quoted the band’s lead vocalist Kees Dieffenthaller as saying,“The live show is key to our entire brand.

But the live experience is something we never truly captured before (on record).

“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,” Diefenthaller added.

The release added that We Home is Ineffable Music’s first foray into soca. The company owns and operates venues and festivals, including North America’s biggest reggae concert, Cali Roots Fest and manages and releases music from artists like Stick Figure and Collie Buddz, the release said.

The band said, “We Home was created to fill a void for soca music at a time when covid19 has put the communal Carnival celebrations and fetes that are the genre’s raison d’etre on pause for the foreseeable future.”