FATHERS is the elevator music we didn’t know we needed, reaching exorbitant highs with parental restraint
June 12, 2026 | Evan Dale
Blue Note Records / Aidan Cullen
By way of an audio test at Kenny Beats’ new Putnam Hill Studio in LA, FATHERS was born. The quartet of instrumentalists and producers also includes drummer Nate Smith, keyboardist Kiefer (Keifer Shackelford), and bassist CARRTOONS (Ben Carr), all of whom are multi-instrumentalists, producers, songwriters, and solo artists, each renowned and successful in every aspect of their own creative paths. In many ways, it would seem a high hurdle to clear for such chops to coalesce, not because they’re incapable of collaboration or finding the right sound, but rather that they’re all so wide-ranging in their individual pursuits that defining the common ground between them requires a fair bit of attention to that definition itself. Thankfully, the core trio has been playing together since 2023, and the eventual title of their 2026 project helps put their sound into words.
Kenny Beats has been referring to himself by his legal name, Kenneth Blume, during the project’s quiet media rollout. It’s in the buttoned-up posturing and calm of maturity – their collective attempt at sonic fatherhood – where FATHERS ends up settling into its auditory aesthetic. It’s the suits, tie bars, and turtlenecks in their photo together, or the grainy nostalgia of the camcorder capturing of their live sessions. It’s wood-paneled walls, cigars, and dry martinis with a twist. It’s understated progression in their improvisational pursuits, expanding and contracting with the breath of a timeless jazz-plus-so-much-more album, refined at the edges by a producer to the stars. It is seemingly simple, yet one of the tasks of play least achievable in the far-reaching world of art, sonic or otherwise.
Blue Note Records
It’s ultimately unexpected. There is so much explosive signature between the four names named FATHERSthat the expectations run wild before listening. Yet when listening, the result is top-shelf elevator music stripped of any of that term’s derogatory meaning. It can flow past your consciousness if you’re not directly giving it attention, but it will still be massaging your subconscious with the healing flow of masterful instrumentalism. Transcendentalism, too, is a word that might be knocking at the door of your subconscious or conscious, depending on whether the project is soundtracking a moment where your focus is elsewhere, or you’re listening intently with noise-canceling headphones. It’s jazz, sure, but the touch of each individual’s rangy artistry bleeds into every track of the eight.
Funky expulsion bleed from Ben Carr’s basslines. An underlying throughfare of emotionally charged Neo-Soul paints the whole thing with nostalgia. Raw keystroke explosions surprise listeners as Keifer Shackelford takes charge of unexpected moments. Nate Smith never waivers, guiding the project’s course from the front of house just as Kenneth is on the back end.
“We all write, we all play at a high level, and we’re pushing each other to be better,” expressed CARRTOONS when describing their collective chemistry. “So we know going into anything that there’s going to be an inspiration and a push from everybody else, so that hunger that we all have independently becomes this super-being when we get together.”
Whether it’s the elevator of a historic hotel or the one that launches Gene Wilder’s Wonka into the stratosphere, depends on the given moment of any given track. But either way, FATHERS is soundtracking that ride. Boxed in only by the means of vertical transportation it transcends, not the eventual highs it hits, the album slides dramatically wherever it chooses to travel without ever losing grip on its direction.
