"Take it Easy" - Kristel
EP
U2 Related Content:
- "My Man" (Studio Version) - Kristel (03:57)
- "Take it Easy" (Studio Version) - Kristel (03:03)
- "Mafy Loha" (Studio Version) - Kristel (03:06)
- "Let Me Go" (Studio Version) - Kristel (03:11)
- "Fay" (Studio Version) - Kristel (03:22)
- "No One Knows" (Studio Version) - Kristel (03:14)
Background Information
Liner Notes
Kristel is a band from Antananarivo, Madagascar. Their 2021 EP, “Take It Easy” was part of a collaboration with Adam Clayton. Clayton is credited with having “advised them throughout the mix and arrangements”. He is thanked and credited on the album, and on the individual videos released from the project. In their Bandcamp page, the album is described as “a compendium of everything Kristel have experienced these past few months: cancellations, repatriation and loneliness. They confided that they felt “dirty” after their wandering and needed to take a step back. The program for this new single: a light, soothing track, uncluttered with doctored organic sounds and a bass-line that is simultaneously zen, powerful and tenacious.”
The EP contains six tracks. All are available on streaming services and digital storefronts. A special limited digipack CD is also available via Bandcamp. The EP is 19:53 in length, and was released via Libertalia Music.
Adam Clayton was in touch with the band in 2018, and met with the young band backstage during one of the shows in Paris during the Experience and Innocence tour that year. When the band was struggling with “My Man” they reached out to Clayton who agreed to help with that track, and then later agreed to help with the entire album. In an interview with Africa Vivre Kristel reveals, “We started getting in touch with Mister Adam Clayton in 2018. And when the health crisis started in 2020 and we decided to make this mini album, we asked him if he wanted to participate and put his grain of salt on it and he said yes. He was in direct contact with the three of us and with Laurent de Boisgissons, who also made and mixed this mini-album, during the takes and until the boxing.” (translated from French) The band have thanked Adam for guiding and supporting them since the beginning of the journey recording this EP.
Two singles were released ahead of the album, “My Man” released on March 5, 2021 and “Mafy Loha” on April 2, 2021, both were the same version released on the EP. The EP itself was released on May 28, 2021. Videos for both are available on YouTube.
Clayton was recently spotted in the OneTwoPassIt recording studio with the band along with Irish producer John Reynolds, so there may be more collaborations ahead. (The photos stated “end of our recording session, with the dream team, and was posted April 30, 2022, and the OneTwoPassIt studio confirmed it was ‘last week’.)