KBM

KELLY emerged onto the music scene of Southend-on-Sea and London, UK in 2006.  One of her first public outings was when she sang with renowned spoken word artist Jo Overfield, on folk musician Malcolm Blake-Lawson's set at the ‘biggest free festival of its kind in Europe’ - Leigh Folk Festival 2007.

Further collaborations followed, including writing and recording many songs with prolific sound-artist, label owner, DJ and musician Stuart Bowditch under the name SiLT; writing songs with singer-songwriter Maria Nayler  of Robert Miles' 'One and One' fame; lending her vocals to a few tracks off an album by the fabulous songsmith David Woodock, during his Dave Woodcock and the Splinters phase (pre being signed to Blow Up Records); creating the Percy Furkettle Trip band with Martin King (Glass Brides/the Percy Furkettle Trip/Making Mr King), James Cooper, (Salt Demons) Ramjet (Can't Collective/T-Bitch) and Wendy Solomon (Angel and the Melodyhorns/Kiss Me Quick/the David Woodcock Band); followed by electronic band Glass Brides with Martin King and Luke Mersey. In 2017 she joined Dr Zod with Roy Storey, Paul Henshaw (Blues Spiders/Platypus/Salt Demons), Kelly Kennedy-Scates (Dirty Fairies), Rozi Barnes, renowned 'Mouth of the South' spoken word artist Cherry Scott and Lisa Martin (Dirty Fairies/Primo Nelson/Ussleman). She also provided backing vocals on a number of recorded tracks released by Owen Williams. 

In 2017 Kelly also started a song co-writing project called F\GUREHEAD,  with the idea that a fluid line up of songwriters could collaborate, crossing over genres but with a recurring electronica thread running through. Luke Mersey was immediately on board and the pair released F\gurehead's debut single, High/Low Tide, in July 2018, which received the support of BBC Introducing and was championed by broadcaster, DJ and music author Daryl Easlea. Roy Storey also performed guitar on the track. Soon after its release, Lou Woodger, a multi instrumentalist and loop artist who is a composer in her own right, joined the fold. She brought in singer-songwriter and guitarist Dave Livings to perform guitar. The four piece created and performed a live set around Southend-on-Sea over a period of about eight months. Since the beginning of February 2019 however, Kelly and Lou operated as a two-piece, Kelly on beats, percussion and vocals and Lou on a variety of instruments which she loops live. The duo created a new set made up of some reworked versions of Lou's already released solo instrumental compositions now with added vocals and electronic beat loops, as well as writing some brand new songs together. One of these new pieces, Samodiva, was recorded and released on May 18, 2019 along with a music video. As a duo, Lou and Kelly as F\gurehead have played various notable live gigs, including opening for Tallowah's album launch at iconic music venue Chinnerys; supporting Dick Valentine (the Electric Six) at the Railway Hotel; opening for Justin Hopper & Sharron Kraus event at the Leigh Folk Festival 2019, and playing at Village Green '19, a festival which attracts more than 20,000 to Chalkwell Park in Westcliff, sharing the bill with Busted, Fun Lovin' Criminals, Snowboy and the Latin Section and Ruti. F\gurehead was chosen to perform on the Idea 13 stage by a panel of music industry names and faces, out of 300 applicants.

In October 2019 Kelly launched a solo project under the artist name K-A-B, where she creates and performs electronic music, a mixture of contemporary, commercial released songs; soundtracks/production music and experimental soundscapes and sound design. She releases the tracks on her own independent label KBM (Kelly Buckley Music) as commercial releases and production music available for licensing. In 2020 developed the K-A-B label to include art + apparel, inspired by some of the visuals she uses in her music. 

In late 2019 she became a member of MPW (Music Production for Women) and also co-founded the Wild Almanac Collective, an arts-meets-nature project where four artists go foraging for wild food, pigments, materials and sounds from the landscape to create visuals, recipes and experimental music. While the group project fell apart during the pandemic, Kelly continued to work with the sounds of nature to create much of the ambient and avant-garde music used in her solo project at K-A-B.  Find out more at K-A-B.NET. 

You can hear/buy a number of Kelly's written and co-written releases on all the major digital download and streaming platforms, or buy physical CDs in certain independent stores. Details are on this site.