UK artist Kai Bosch, has shared new single “Tulips,” the track is the follow-up to his previous single “Bodybag,” both now available via Lab Records and DSPs. Bosch will embark on a four-date headline stint in late April/early May. He’will also be appearing at Borderline Festival

Working again alongside Brit award winning producer Charlie Andrew (Alt-J, London Grammar) they created a broad and progressive production set to his wondrous vocals & heartfelt lyrics throughout, Kai explains, “Tulips is about the realisation that you have nothing left to give to a relationship, it’s a bittersweet feeling of optimism and hope for the future while also feeling a pang of regret that things aren’t the way they once were.

“I wrote it towards the end of a stint living with my ex boyfriend and realising that giving my love to him wasn’t worth my time anymore as I wasn’t getting anything in return.

“The song was inspired by the idea of flower pressings and how you can preserve the colour and beauty of something that is still dead nonetheless – and how I wish I could do that to the relationship I had with my ex.

“Tulips are also my favourite flower, and the constant give and take within this relationship reminded me of how tulips constantly open and close with the rising and setting of the sun.”

If the narrative of the small town boy finding himself in the big city sounds like one taken from a coming-of-age film, then Kai’s early years serve only to amp up the redemptive story arc even further. It’s easy to forget given the positive recent leaps in queer representation in the media that, even half a decade ago, the public role models for a young gay man growing up in a “very Tory, very closed-minded” area were far more limited. “I came out when I was 14, I was the only gay kid at school and I didn’t quite know how to act,” he recalls. “At the time, the only film on Netflix that was gay was called ‘Gay Best Friend’ so you bet I became that. All of a sudden I changed my voice, bleached my hair and started wearing iridescent silver jackets and horrendous foundation. The further and further I got into that, I really did have an identity crisis that took quite a long time to pull myself out of.”

During this time, however, Kai had started to discover artists such as Lana Del Rey and Lorde – people whose music embraced sadness and vulnerability, and who showed that there was a beauty to be found in life’s messy grey areas. These were women who could transport you to a whole different universe, one far removed from the blinkered reality Kai was actually living in. “From then on, music really became the only thing that helped me cope and escape,” he says. “I think someone like Lana probably resonated with me because I wasn’t very happy at the time. I’d listen to her and get to be in my own world.”

Taking this increasingly important passion, teaching himself the keyboard and starting to write in secret, it took a while for Kai to let anyone into the private musical safe space that he’d started to build. But by the time he reached his second year of college, it just became everything. He applied early to Goldsmiths, was accepted to start on a music course the following year and immediately left for Berlin.

Inspired more by the idea of articulating feeling than any particular genre, the sensory explosion of his new life quickly translated into ripe material. The duality of vulnerability and hedonism that runs through Kai’s music, can all be traced to those formative Berlin months.

Kai Bosch 2024 Live Dates

Feb 15 – Borderline Festival, Dublin
Apr 30 – Prince Albert, Brighton
May 1 – The Social, London
May 2 – The Castle Hotel, Manchester
May 3 – Poetry Club, Glasgow

order tickets for Kai Bosch HERE