9-year-old breakout sensation Alfie Templeman has today announced his joyous, heavily-anticipated debut album Mellow Moon – out 27 May on Chess Club Records/AWAL – and shared his brand new single & video ‘Broken’.
‘Broken’ also comes accompanied by a music video directed by Jack Turner and produced by Blood Films. Speaking about the new single, Templeman says: “It’s a bit of an anthem for people my age really, all the wobbles of being a teenager and figuring yourself out. It’s about realising that analysing yourself is an important part of growing up.”
Alfie Templeman will embark on a UK headline tour this spring – with support from labelmate Pixey – which includes long-since sold-out shows in Manchester, Bristol, Brighton, and his biggest UK show to date at the capital’s Shepherds Bush Empire. Tickets for all shows are available HERE.
Only releasing his debut single ‘Like An Animal’ in 2018, Alfie Templeman has, with every thrilling move ever since, now fully cemented his position as the teenage icon of his generation. Combining indie-boy-next-door aesthetics with peerless musicianship – entirely self-taught, he plays no less than eleven instruments (recently taking up the flute) and also contributes heavily with production and co-production duties on Mellow Moon – Templeman pushes boundaries like no other teenager.
His love of universe building, both aesthetically and musically, shone through on 2021 debut mini-album Forever Isn’t Long Enough and continues to burn effervescently with Mellow Moon and all its accompanying visuals. Fresh, bold, youthful and inventive. Alfie Templeman sees an increasingly grey world in vibrant technicolour.
With well over 120,000,000 streams worldwide and a hit tour supporting Chloe Moriondo in North America under his belt already, Alfie Templeman’s global appeal is reaching fever pitch. And closer to home, he has racked up in excess of 150,000,000 radio impacts in the United Kingdom alone; fuelled by the longstanding support of national networks BBC Radio 1 (where he has been daytime playlisted four times and has been awarded six consecutive Hottest Records already in his burgeoning career, as well as being on the A List with his recent single ‘3D Feelings’ and at the same time on the B List with ‘Dizzy’ the track he produced and featured on for Chloe Moriondo), BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 6 Music, Radio X, Virgin, Absolute, and Apple Music 1.
‘3D Feelings’ is also Templeman’s first Top 40 Airplay record, firmly establishing himself alongside the most exciting, as well as the most accomplished, names in British music. A spot on the 2021 BBC Sound Of poll, and subsequently in the BBC’s Brit List initiative, along with further tip lists with Radio X, Vevo, Amazon and MTV. Swathes features and reviews have followed from national press tastemakers, including ‘Ones to watch’ tips from The Independent, The Telegraph, The Sun, The Sunday Mirror and Huffington Post, to add to previous accolades from The Observer, The Evening Standard and The Sunday Times.
When Alfie Templeman started to work on his long-awaited debut album in early 2020 he could never have predicted the turbulent path that lay ahead for both him personally and the rest of the world. Two years later and the young prodigy has emerged with Mellow Moon; an album that feels like something of a miracle, landing somewhere between an otherworldly trip and a joy-filled ode to life back on earth. As Templeman, himself, puts it; “It feels like I’m on a different planet. I’ve gone somewhere new and I’m discovering fire for the first time.”
Templeman began the earliest period of the pandemic shielding due to a respiratory issue first identified in childhood. Having found himself feeling “very low” he sought help and began taking antidepressants as he attempted to deal with his anxiety. Alfie hasn’t spoken much about his mental health in the past but felt that to ignore such a significant moment in his life, finally seeking help for the anxiety he’d contended with his whole life, would be hiding something of himself. “I think people assume that I’m this easy, outgoing person but there’s actually a lot more layers to me and this record shows that,” he says.
“Writing songs like ‘Broken’, ‘Take Some Time Away’ and ‘Mellow Moon’ were like therapy. It was me asking ‘What’s wrong with me?’ and ‘How am I going to get better?’ Just figuring things out in real time. I had therapy but there were still things unresolved in my mind. So I turned to music for the answers.”
The result is an easily accessible comfort place. Across 14 tracks Templeman closes his eyes and imagines another world, one where he’s at ease and not distracted by life’s many challenges.
It was only by embracing honesty and moving past the fear of failure that one of the U.K.’s most exciting and distinctive new songwriters could move forwards. “I’m being really open for the first time about where I’m at mentally. Overcoming that felt life changing.” He was also able to call on regular collaborators Tom McFarland (Jungle), Justin Young (The Vaccines), Will Bloomfield, and Rob Milton.
Inspired by modern influences like Steve Lacy, Khruangbin and Leon Bridges, as well as Templeman’s constant cosmic guide Todd Rundgren, Mellow Moon flows with an ease that belies its difficult creation. Acting as both an intimate diary entry and a communal call to arms, Mellow Moon is Alfie’s most complete work to date and a platform from which he will surely use to propel himself further into the stratosphere. If ever proof were needed that music is a salvation or a transportive force, this is it.