- Words Notion Staff
After the release of the documentary what looms., directed by Jamie Flatters, enigmatic UK rapper looms. talks how the film came to be, his forthcoming mixtape, The Carillon and how music has got him through the hardest of times.
There’s a silence that surrounds The Carillon, not emptiness, but something closer to reverence. The latest offering from looms. (also known as languid looms.) isn’t an album in the traditional sense. It’s a slow-burning, confessional exorcism of faith, shame, class, and memory – each track ringing like a bell in a place long since rebuilt. Known for retreating from the spotlight, looms. emerges here not with spectacle, but solemnity. No singles, no press roll-out, no algorithmic bait. Just sound, story, and stillness.
Unfolding across 15 tracks and a companion documentary by Jamie Flatters, what looms., The Carillon marks the artist’s most open act of resistance yet – against genre, industry systems, and the myth of visibility itself. It’s a body of work rooted in the ruins of a commuter town, shaped by a working-class Christian upbringing, and animated by guilt, grit, and glimpses of salvation.
Through The Lo & Behold Construction Company, he’s built an intimate ecosystem for his art to survive on its own clock: handwritten letters, limited drops, and voices speaking directly from the margins. In a culture that demands constant performance, looms. crafts a world where the music – and the message – can simply exist.
Here, the enigmatic UK rapper looms. talks how the film came to be, his forthcoming mixtape and how music has got him through the hardest of times.
Let’s start with The Carillon. There’s a haunting stillness to it — 15 tracks that feel more like confessions than compositions. You’ve spoken before about exploring the tension between Christianity and your working-class upbringing. How did those roots shape the emotional architecture of this record?
This project is another dissection of my childhood. My last project, Saints Are Hard To Live With, addressed the impact of child abuse in many forms. The Carillon is focussed more on religious and fiscal details of my life. Making it allowed me to view these aspects in a detached sense, to pick them apart and reflect on the reasons behind the pain that made me make music in the first place. All of this baggage is staged in a commuter town that’s now completely reconstructed. Nothing is as it was, so I tried to capture that in these songs too. The moods, the underpasses, the escapes in drugs and sex. The churches my family tried to hunt for salvation in. Not believing, the concept of debt, the guilt and shame attached to having money when I left. The guilt and shame attached to being an artist. I took all these stories and moments and injected myself back into them as a voyeur, as looms. and not just who I was as a child. Watching myself from the town church tower, playing the bells in an endless procession. This image speaks so much to me. Madness, dedication or both. In that sense, the project is a freedom and a prison for me, and ‘The Carillon’ is both a religious instrument and a cry for help.
What looms. is such a rare window into your life — the fact that you even agreed to be on camera feels like a quiet rebellion against your usual approach. What made you say yes to the documentary, and how did you navigate the vulnerability that came with it?
Jamie Flatters approached me with a clear vision and proposal. His work is incredible and consistent and I knew that he would treat my story with care. I was humbled to know that he was a big fan of my work from the beginning and I felt his passion in wanting to capture my story. At some point, I had to wrestle with representing it, or hiding everything as I had always planned. I decided that if I was to let people in, to own my past as a badge of honour, this was the time. It felt cowardly to do anything else. The film walks you through my old town and into London. Shows you all my haunts. It hurt so much to make, and between the extensive shooting days I took a lot of long walks in circles. There’s no navigation I can really explain, I just felt compelled to do it. A responsibility. Jamie is such a talented artist and it was a pleasure to work with him and the whole Our Second Cousin team. I am proud to now call him a friend, and to have what looms. as a byproduct of that, publicly available for you to now find.
Your fans are used to being held at a deliberate distance — the anonymity, the drawings, the scarcity of public appearances. But this film peels back the curtain. Did that shift in visibility feel liberating, disorienting — or both?
The film does well to keep the distance that I need to just be myself. I couldn’t have done it otherwise. You may feel that there is more visibility, but you wouldn’t know if you crossed me on the street. That is what I need. What you will know is the story that got me to this point, which is only drip fed in my music and letters. I hope I’ll never have to tell it again. I expect it will answer many questions for the fans, but still keep them firmly at arm’s length. Those already tapped in with me know how I am. It’s amazing to see fans put boundaries in place on my behalf. Many of them have nothing to fear in viewing this film, and they have Mr. Flatters to thank for that.
You’ve always found ways to bypass the traditional industry systems — from releasing Saints Are Hard to Live With via handwritten letters, to selling work privately through The Lo & Behold Construction Company. What draws you to that kind of intimacy with your audience?
When we consume music, we dance through a number of soulless brands and partners to get to a track that has intangible life-changing power. We give them the credence and they do not care. There’s no fun in it either. My fans and I are in an endless dance together and you’d only know if you took part. If you stepped into our world. When you buy from Lo & Behold Construction, A Representative looks after you personally. When you leave a message, you will find my writings in the newsletters. When you buy my music, I am there only for you and the money goes to us and not a stranger. The same point extends to my good friend Andrew Keyman. His poetry is delivered to you directly upon purchase. It is intimate by design. It means more because it does, and it brings the value back to the music. I’m so removed from what the world expects from rappers, what the world wants them to be. I don’t fit the mould, but I know I fit my own. That is where the intimacy grew from. I want you to feel like you know me. Like you understand me in some sense. The intimacy stems from that – from me treating my songs like secrets. As the ‘what looms.’ film explores, there’s a lot of backwards shame wrapped up in doing what I do. As such, I deeply appreciate every listener. It really has changed my life, and this is how I can show it. When I die, people will look back and see that I made this world for us.
There’s something beautifully stubborn about how you treat music — as if it’s not just a product but a ritual. Was there a moment when you realised you wanted to protect your work from the noise of algorithms, PR cycles, and streaming culture?
I made music for about 13 years before anyone even cared to listen. I was used to being laughed at for it. For people never understanding. Now I’m not saying I was any good, but some things you just can’t shake. Music is the only place I have to let it all out. It was my therapy when my family couldn’t afford it. It was never once about getting good looks and doing the media dance and I find it all quite ugly now. It was never even about making ‘good’ music. That in itself would taint what this is for me. I make music because I have to. I only release what feels right. It’s not that the music is precious, it’s that I am. I don’t want what the industry wants, so I don’t need to align with it and I think that’s something many people can feel. Some people are just natural fits for that world and they can dance on stage and film themselves in the street and hop on whatever the next trend is. I won’t be someone I’m not.
The Carillon arrives with no official singles in the lead-up, no campaign in the traditional sense. But when it hits, it hits hard. Do you think there’s power in restraint – in letting a project speak for itself, unannounced?
I only ever care about the work being good for me to make. The utility of making it, the routine, is all there is for me. The orbiting question is if I’m exploring something worthwhile. And even that is tailored to me. Worthwhile only to me. Everything else is secondary and I don’t worry about the listener. Even the power of restraint in this context is subjective. If the work hits hard then it hits hard and that’s a welcome bonus. Nothing else really matters. Thank you, by the way.
Tell us about The Lo & Behold Construction Company. Beyond being an imprint, it feels almost like a philosophy – or maybe even a disguise. What does it represent to you?
The Lo & Behold Construction Co. is the result of me working so many jobs to make ends meet. After a while of working every job, in every industry, I started to see how everything is a construction, which is not always the same as being inauthentic. My experience as an artist was a childish vision of the creative industries being different from working as a cleaner, from working on-site or in warehouses or doing admin in an office. It’s all the same shit for me now. The same hours and bosses and feeling when you get home. The sacrifices to get to this point aren’t even healed enough to go into yet. There’s always ups and downs, but the freedom I have now is only possible because I made my own construction. I had to do things my own way, or it would never work at all, and I had to do something with my life’s work. Lo & Behold is a nod to my old label by the same name, which in itself is a nod to my old lo-hop collective. We used to call our music lo. As a construction company, we are at least honest about what we’re selling. You are welcome to join.
From Andrew Keyman’s chapbooks to the way you’ve handled merch drops, there’s a literary, almost archival quality to how you build worlds. How important is physicality – the tactile, the handwritten, the tangible – in an era where everything lives on a screen?
It’s only more important because everything lives on a screen. That in itself isn’t inherently bad either. Everything I do is just an extension of who I am. I had to learn that through failure. From the artworks which are images taken from family archives, to the lyrics and garments with the face embroidered to the letters and posters and the language I use. I can only be myself, be of service. I ask the same of my representatives and Andrew. I love the history of English, the depth throughout the generations. I love sending and receiving handwritten letters and physical images, so this is what we do. They feel more meaningful, but only because of our digital world and cultural focus on the new. They aren’t inherently more worthwhile and I’d do them regardless of the question. The Lo & Behold Company is an archive. If it’s important isn’t up to me.
There’s always been this shivering genrelessness to your sound – swerving between lo-fi, spoken word, outsider folk, and hip-hop. Is that instinctive for you, or do you approach genre like a language you choose to unlearn?
When I have something to say creatively, it sits in my mind until it falls out before whatever I have to hand. The genre is not something that I ever concerned myself with consciously. My lifelong passion for rap music is just what I had to hand in my bedroom then. No money or room for instruments or a laptop. I had my pen and pad, my phone speaker and my obsessions with Big L, Big Pun, Kool G Rap, Slum Village, Nas, etc. and that was all it took. Trying to see if I could fit the bill as an English kid and rap as good as them. Some messages will feel more suitable for certain pockets and sounds. Some are just challenges that I want to see if I can complete, with odd time signatures or strange moods and rhythms. I don’t approach genre, I just do whatever feels right, whatever I have in reach. Some alt. projects of mine are out there now under different names in different genres, but that’s for you to find.
You’ve said very little in interviews over the years. But now, with this project and this moment, you’re speaking – even if just slightly. Why now?
If I have something to say, and if we’re going to speak, we might as well have a meaningful conversation. I’m proud to have so much to offer the world. To be worth anyone’s interest. Sometimes I have to honour that. Just don’t follow me home. I invite you to leave a message with The Lo & Behold Construction Company. Thank you for your time.