Michael Kiwanuka FUDGE: Oct 23 Album Guide

Michael Kiwanuka FUDGE, the Mercury Prize winner’s fifth studio album, arrives on Friday 23 October 2026 via Polydor Records. It is his first album without long-time producers Danger Mouse and Inflo at the desk: Kiwanuka self-produced the core sessions, then took the tracks to Dom Monks (Laura Marling, Big Thief) and string arranger Rosie Danvers to finish. Universal Music Canada’s announcement on 24 September 2026 frames the record as a project held nearly a year while Kiwanuka addressed ongoing ill health publicly; live dates remain on hold indefinitely.

FUDGE tracklist (12 songs)

Summer Clothes

California

Just Another Moment

Drowning In Your Heart

Love In My Heart

Across The Sky

Stars

You Sent Me Flying

Move In My Direction

Steve’s Paradise

Sing

Swings And Roundabouts

Polydor’s store and Kiwanuka’s official shop list CD and 2LP editions under the same title. Pitchfork and label copy both confirm the 23 October street date.

How FUDGE was made

According to the Universal Music Canada / label narrative, FUDGE grew in parallel with 2024’s Small Changes, not as a rupture from Danger Mouse and Inflo but as a second lane. Kiwanuka worked in a one-room cob studio near his Southampton home — nicknamed Dreamers — with multi-instrumentalist Joe Connell. Longer, single-take pieces such as the seven-minute Love In My Heart convinced him the experiment was an album. Touchstones cited in the announcement include Rubber Soul, Neil Young’s On the Beach, Frank Ocean’s Blonde and Shuggie Otis’s Inspiration Information.

Stars, with its fuzz guitar, dates from an earlier confidence crisis and finally lands here. Summer Clothes and Swings And Roundabouts bookend anxiety about working without the old production safety net. When the Dreamers takes were ready, Dom Monks and Rosie Danvers added “the posh stuff”; some string arrangements were recorded in Dreamers by a quartet led by Henry Rankin and Harry Fausing Smith. Artwork is by illustrator Stevie Gee.

Why the October 23 window matters

23 October sits inside a busy Friday for ADVANCE music coverage. Claud’s *Me and the Music* (Dead Oceans) is already live on Sunday Profile for the same date; FUDGE is a separate Polydor / soul-folk story with a different audience and should not be twinned with that indie release. Search demand for “Michael Kiwanuka new album”, “FUDGE tracklist” and “Kiwanuka 2026” typically rises in the fortnight before street date, especially after a health-related delay announcement.

Cluster links

Read Claud’s same-Friday ADVANCE at https://www.thesundayprofile.com/claud-me-and-the-music only as calendar context. For other October album hubs already live, see https://www.thesundayprofile.com/avalanches-no-bad-memories and https://www.thesundayprofile.com/max-richter-while-the-flood-rages (both 16 Oct). FUDGE deepens Music albums without replacing those pieces.

What to expect sonically

Label copy and the UMC long-read describe FUDGE as looser and more stream-of-consciousness than *Small Changes*: single flowing takes, songs that stretch past radio length, and a deliberately “homespun” Dreamers aesthetic before Monks and Danvers add polish. Kiwanuka quotes Chick Corea on trusting what you think is beautiful; that line opens the album. If you came for Danger Mouse’s cinematic frames, this is a different lane — closer to play and personal unbound expression than to a big-studio statement.

Physical formats (CD and 2LP) are already listed on Polydor Store UK and the artist shop, which usually means pre-order demand will show up in charts chatter the week of release even while live touring is paused.

Sources

Universal Music Canada announcement, 24 September 2026 (Polydor; 23 Oct release; tracklist; Dom Monks / Rosie Danvers; Dreamers studio narrative; live hold). Polydor Store UK and shop.michaelkiwanuka.com product pages for FUDGE CD/2LP. Pitchfork news note on the album announcement.