Michael Kiwanuka's 'Fudge': The Second Album Recorded in a Medieval Hut

Michael Kiwanuka has released a second album, Fudge, on Polydor — a record made in tandem with November 2024's Small Changes but without his long-term production collaborators Danger Mouse and Inflo. Its release was delayed by ill health.

The Guardian's review describes Fudge as "rough and instinctive, but also lush and alive with melody" — more than a mere companion album to its predecessor. Where Small Changes was recorded in Los Angeles, Fudge took shape in a studio that, in Kiwanuka's words, "looks like a medieval hut" in Southampton. The songs were jammed into existence by Kiwanuka and members of his live band rather than written in the conventional sense.

The contrast with Small Changes is stark. That album followed three gold albums, a Grammy nomination and a Mercury prize win, and arrived on the back of an unexpected American hit: Cold Little Heart, a 2017 single that went viral and sold a million copies in the US after its use in the television drama Big Little Lies. Recorded in LA, it featured heavyweight credits — bassist Pino Palladino, drummer James Gadson (who played on Marvin Gaye's I Want You and Donald Fagen's The Nightfly), and the legendary R&B producer Jimmy Jam on organ for three tracks. Critics reached for adjectives like "unhurried" and "meditative".

What does Fudge change for Kiwanuka?

It signals a deliberate loosening of the machinery around him. The August session musicians and the legendary producers were absent from the Southampton sessions, as were Danger Mouse and Inflo. The album's opening track, Summer Clothes, can be heard as a farewell letter to both producers: "I'm OK, I found another way … we'll be back here soon, just not today."

The Guardian notes that Small Changes "wasn't the whole story". Fudge is the rest of it — instinctive, band-made, and shaped in a room far removed from LA studio culture.

By Marcus Bennett