Michael Kiwanuka will perform Thursday, July 24. Michael Kiwanuka first graced the Calgary Folk Fest stage in 2017. Eight years later, so much and so little has changed. Right after a first major electoral shift in the US and a time of sweeping populism in Europe, Kiwanuka’s Love and Hate record was a softly political and deeply personal exposition of selfhood in the face of a hard and difficult world.

A pandemic, a mercury prize, and five UK prime ministers later, Kiwanuka returns with Small Changes, new songs and a robust live performance. Kiwanuka still brings a rebel soul, but one that is even more wizened and contemplative. Small Changes represents the experience of watching yourself and your peers mold and shift around you.

Expressed in low-tempo, meditative soul and rock arrangements, the songs are engrossing. Slow pulsing rhythms give an almost trip-hop effect, even though the instrumentation is as analog as possible. His voice is the centrepiece, powerful and encompassing, but also resonant and reserved. There’s carefully prescribed space in his phrasing. Every lyric lands slowly over the course of a song, fed with the honesty and authenticity of a well-observed life.

When the world is moving faster than we can track, and the fluttering of life and politics feels out of our control, Michael Kiwanuka reminds us all we can do is find where we can make our own small changes.

-Liam Prost