28 September 2023 - 0 Comments

K M T P is the musical project of Keria Paterson (Te Arawa, Ngāti Raukawa and Ngāi Tahu, they/them), a musician and songwriter currently based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Before starting K M T P, Paterson spent the majority of their time behind the drum kit, performing in groups like Polyester, Dirty Pixels and more recently Dead Famous People.

Their debut EP was made by curating jangly guitars, melodic casio keyboards and earnest storytelling. In the three years since K M T P have cranked it up, letting listeners lose themselves in smooth layers of distortion and fuzz, all the while keeping sincere songwriting firmly at the core.

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K M T P - With Love, K M T P

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With Love, K M T P is an album which feels distilled from long times and great distances. “Two days is a long time”, Paterson sings – packing a few bars of music with a thousand agonising moments. Earlier in the album, 2021 Was Fun invests that recent time with such poignant nostalgia, it turns years into decades. It’s a grandeur and depth of feeling that K M T P’s Keria Paterson has grown into. Born of a world-weariness and self-assurance that was only hinted at on their 2020 EP P.S C U SOON, this is the kind of debut that feels like it’s making good on the promise of that earlier worker – the same vision, only cleaner, deeper, more refined.

Key to that vision is an unmistakably Aotearoa take on emo: campfire acoustic strums leading into churning walls of distortion, voices hoarse from last night’s roadtrip sing-along, trumpets trading solos with third-hand synthesisers. At the centre is Keria's devastatingly direct songwriting, the heavy-heartbeat soundtrack to losing direction, finding love, and figuring yourself out. Deceptively simple and disarmingly earnest, every song feels well-worn and quietly anthemic – equally at home, blaring in the stadium, or discovered on a long forgotten mix CD.

"I had never created an album as a solo musician," says Paterson. "I really wanted to embrace this new challenge as an artist. It felt like something I needed to do at the time in order to properly represent the songs in my desired way. I think of albums as more of a complete story than as a collection of songs; I really wanted to lean into this mentality for With Love, K M T P."

To celebrate the release of their debut album With Love, K M T P, K M T P is traversing Aotearoa!

30/09 - Tāmaki Makaurau - Flying Out Instore

06/10 - Ōtautahi - Space Academy (Solo)

07/10 - Ōtepoti - Yours (Solo)

14/10 - Te Whanganui-a-Tara - Vogelmorn Hall

20/10 - Tāmaki Makaurau - Whammy Bar

Photo Credit: Frances Carter

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