Mercury Prize Blog

Douglas Hart was a founding member of iconic Scottish band The Jesus & Mary Chain, along with brothers Jim and William Reid. The band accumulated a cult following almost instantly, their gigs becoming notorious for crowd trouble. Perhaps most famously their show at North London Polytechnic in Spring 1985 where hundreds of fans stormed the stage – a stage that JAMC had left prematurely – and destroyed the equipment. At the centre of all this controversy stood Hart, an archetypal Rock & Roller with black sunglasses permanently fixed to his face. When asked why her only ever had two strings attached to his bass guitar Hart casually explained “That’s the two I use. I mean, what’s the f****** point in spending money on another two? Two is enough.”

Some of their earliest videos, though roughly shot and at times amateurish, have become testament to their times, capturing the feel and look of an alternative Eighties. Hart, however, was unimpressed by his earliest experiences in front of the camera, describing it as being tantamount to torture. Watch any of the early clips like ‘Never Understand’ or ‘Happy When It Rains’ and the pained look on young Hart’s face make it easy to see his words on the subject are anything but hyperbole.

Having registered his distaste for performing in front of the camera, Hart was so happy behind it that when he left JAMC in 1991 he took up filmmaking full time, putting his myriad of musical contacts to very good use. He had already made two videos for fellow Indie icons My Bloody Valentine (the colourful and chaotic collage that accompanied ‘You Made Me Realise’ and the similarly contorted ‘Feed Me With Your Kisses) but it was former JAMC band mate Bobby Gillespie who gave Hart an opportunity to establish himself as one of the new decade’s key voices in music video production. His promo for ‘Higher Than The Sun’ captured the essence of Gillespie’s band Primal Scream perfectly, but it also summed up the mood of the early Nineties; it’s bold mix of colour and blurry performance drawing the same parallels with Sixties counter culture that defined the early part of the decade.

From thereon in Hart was the first choice for some of the UK’s biggest alternative acts. The Stone Roses called on the director to film their live show at Blackpool’s Empress Ballroom, three months after their classic debut album was unleashed on to an unsuspecting world. The resulting film is still regarded as a classic, capturing the band at what was an unquestionable high point. The band would use footage from Hart’s film for the video to ‘Waterfall’.

As Brit Pop became the buzz word during 1996, Hart sided up with Paul Weller. The  video he made for ‘You Do Something To Me’ was instrumental in Weller’s transformation into  cultural icon and respected solo artist. It also saw Hart develop his signature style; a very stylised, effortlessly cool and somehow nostalgic look that uses rich colours and hand held cameras to get close to the subject without ever feeling awkward or contrived. It was this style that would pervade through all the videos Hart made with long time Weller collaborator Steve Craddock with his own band Ocean Colour Scene.

Hart’s ability to capture live performance so precisely stems from his time in JAMC, his intuition as a musician informing his eye as a filmmaker. This ability to harness the energy and incessancy of thrilling live bands made him the obvious choice to when it came to documenting The Libertines for the video to ‘You Can’t Stand Me Now’. The video sparked a relationship with Pete Doherty that has maintained throughout, Hart providing promos for many of Babyshambles singles and most recently his own solo work. ‘Broken Love Song’ was uncharacteristically monochrome, and also saw Hart introducing a narrative to the proceedings, showing that even with such a distinctive style he’s unafraid of creative growth.

Doherty isn’t the only contemporary artist to look to Hart for visual direction; The Horrors worked with him on ‘Sea Within a Sea’ and ‘Who Can Say’, the former being the first thing the band put out after taking time away to record their celebrated album ‘Primary Colours’. Hart’s striking video set out perfectly the mature outlook of their new material. More recently Fionn Regan has been working with Hart on the video for ‘Catacombs’, which features in this weeks Recommends. Shot on 8mm and featuring plenty of jumpy in-camera editing, the video shows Hart coming full circle, referencing the grainy, informal tone of some of his earliest works.

There are few interviews to be found with Hart, and for a director that’s had such an impact on music videos there’s very little in the way of informative articles. However, one page on the Internet Movie Data Base suggests that after all this time Hart may break the habit of a lifetime and appear on the other side of the camera; Los Angeles-based director Eric Green has interviewed the former bass player for the forthcoming documentary ‘Beautiful Noise’, which focuses on the Shoegazing scene of the late Eighties and early Nineties.

This week’s Recommends features a new video from Canadian producer Caribou, otherwise known as Dan Snaith. Originally hailing from Ontario, Canada, Snaith began releasing music under the guise of Manitoba in 2000 and at once caught the attention of those music fans who concern themselves with the peripheries. Spacious, atmospheric and trippy, the Manitoba sound pulled in influences from all over the place, incorporating Shoegaze, Krautrock and Psychedelia but employing contemporary ear when it came to the production. By doing so Snaith created something new and unique, yet reassuringly steeped in  leftfield tradition. The organic feel of these early recordings, and indeed all of his work, is in part reflected by some of the most exciting music currently coming out of the States: Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective and Dirty Projectors all share occasional similarities.

After moving to London in 2001 to work on a Phd in Mathematics (his thesis was entitled ‘Overconvergent Siegel Modular Symbols’) Snaith built up a dedicated  underground following via a string of releases on the much loved Leaf Label. Luckily, his fanbase was dedicated enough to see him through legal wranglings that would eventually see him drop the Manitoba moniker in favour of Caribou. Richard ‘Handsome Dick’ Manitoba, the singer of niche New York Punk band The Dictators threatened a lawsuit should Snaith continue to release music as Manitoba. “It’s like The Smiths suing John Smith” commented Snaith, who, uninterested in the squabble and unable to afford the legal costs acquiesced.

Snaith further broadened his sonic spectrum with his first release as Caribou. ‘The Milk of Human Kindness’  was informed by touring with his live band, an impressive set-up of two drums, glockenspiel and guitars, and helped establish Snaith as a truly individual talent. The following record’Andorra’ confirmed it, as it was awarded the illustrious Polaris Prize, Canada’s equivalent to the Mercury. Having started out as a bedroom based producer of largely electronic music, ‘Andorra’ saw Snaith become a immersed in the studio, excelling as both a song writer, producer, arrangerand vocalist. Streaked with sun-kissed Pop and soulful Psychedelia, the album referenced many points of Snaith’s recording career whilst still pointing in brave new directions.

The much anticipated follow up to ‘Andorra’ is out soon, and if  opening  track ‘Odessa’ is any kind of indication, the set sees Caribou returning to his electronic roots, but with the same widescreen outlook that made ‘Andorra’ such a striking listen. “I got excited by the idea of making dance music that’s liquid in the way it flows back and forth,” he told US website PItchfork “The sounds slosh around in pitch, timbre, pan… Dance music that sounds like it’s made out of water, rather than made out of metallic stuff like most dance music does”

Snaith plays two UK shows in support of his latest record. The London show will feature a DJ slot from Caribou’s constant collaborator and also North London neighbour Keiran Hebden. There will also be a live set from Gold Panda, the young London producer who’s cropped up in all manner of “ones to watch” lists at the start of the year.

Aside from these live dates, Snaith has been masterminding another live project. Caribou Vibration Ensemble is an audacious project that sees the Canadian leading a band of fourteen musicians . Among them are Keiran Hebden, Stones Throw’s blissed out beat miner, Koushik and Brainiac’s John Schmersal. Not stopping there the Ensemble features four drummers, a choir and full brass section. They played two North American shows last September, and as yet there is no news of any UK appearances. If there are, the best place to keep up to date with Caribou is via the website:

http://www.caribou.fm/

1992 was an eventful year for all manner of reasons; the Maastricht Treaty ushered in the European Union, the First Division became the Premiership, Grunge became a mainstream consideration in the US and Dr Dre sparked Rap’s renaissance with legendary album ‘The Chronic’. In the UK, two competitions were inaugurated, although the Crop Circle Competition in Berkshire didn’t manage to make it to a second year. Fortunately the Mercury Prize has gone from strength to strength in the years that followed, as have the band that claimed the coveted the very first Album of Year Award.

Primal Scream have become an institution in British music, never sticking too closely to a certain sound or ethic and constantly reinventing themselves over the course of albums like Vanishing Point, XTRMNTR and Beautiful Future. Their career kicked off though with their classic album Screamadelica, a brave and visionary record that has since come to represent one of the most radical periods in popular British culture. Fusing what was accepted from guitar based bands with the open-minded approach of Acid House and the groove orientated production that was becoming prevalent in the Balearic’s emergent club scene.

Bobby Gilespie, a childhood friend of Alan McGee and a stalwart of Glasgow’s alternative scene, had formed Primal Scream whilst still in school. The band released two albums at the end of the Eighties, but it was the dawn of the new decade that brought a brand new sound and vision to the music they made. Having met Andrew Weatherall at a Rave, Gillespie asked the DJ to remix a Primal Scream tune for the dance floor. Weatherall took the track ‘I’m Loosing More Than I’ll Ever Have’, added drums taken from an Italian bootleg of Edie Brickell’s ‘What I Am’ and the now immortal sample from the B Movie The Wild Angels starring Peter Fonda. ‘Loaded’ became an instant underground hit that soon penetrated through to the mainstream, and forged a friendship between Weatherall and the band that would influence the sound and sonics of Screamadelica. “It’s the combination of Andy and ourselves that’s just f****** brilliant. He can take that quintessential element from one of our songs and make it really focused. He’s got vision and inspiration, when these days most producers are just glorified engineers” Gillespie told The Face in an interview that preceded the albums release.

Never one to keep his thoughts to himslef, Gillespie told another journalist how he felt the album would be perceived in years to come. “We’ve actually made a classic record” he explained “People will still be able to listen to it in forty years time and it will still sound as relevant as it does now”. Such bravado might have been written off as big talk at the time, but twenty years on and the record still maintains a vibrancy and timelessness, qualities that Gillespie and his band were brave enough to strive for. The iconic ‘Psychedelic Sunburst’ cover, created by Creation’s in-house designer the late Paul Cannel, was recently honoured alongside the likes of The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and The Clash by the Royal Mail, who issued a series of stamps featuring iconic album covers.

The band too seem ready to acknowledge the importance of the album, not just with regards to their own careers, but to British culture at large. They recently announced a very special show that will take place in November this year. Taking to the stage with a full choir, a brass section and vocalist Denise Johnson, Primal Scream will perform ‘Screamadelica’ in it’s entirety… something they’ve never done before. It will be the first time the album has been performed live and will no doubt bring back fond memories for anyone who caught them on their legendary tours of the early Nineties.

Tickets for the show, which takes place at London’s Olympia on November 27th, will go on sale on February 26th. Meanwhile, the band are currently recording their tenth album with producer David Holmes.

Talking Head front man and all-round experimentalist David Byrne first crossed paths with Norman Cook during the recording of Cook’s collaboration heavy concept album The BPA, Byrne sharing vocal duties on the track Toe Jam with Dizzee Rascal. Byrne and Cook – once again wearing his Fatboy Slim hat – have joined forces once again, although this time it’s Byrne who’s the driving force. Whereas the The BPA (an acronym of The Brighton Port Authority) was a an opportunity for Cook to welcome in a wide range of artists in to the studio, Byrne is all the more rigorous with this new project ‘Here Lies Love’, setting out with a very definite agenda. “The story I am interested in is about asking what drives a powerful person” explains Byrne “What makes them tick? How do they make and then remake themselves? I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great if—as this piece would be principally composed of clubby dance music—one could experience it in a club setting? Could one bring a ‘story’ and a kind of theater to the disco? Was that possible? If so, wouldn’t that be amazing!

The story in question is that of the ‘Iron Butterfly’ Imelda Marcos. A notorious figure during the Seventies and Eighties, Marcos was the first lady of the Phillipenes and wife to the dictatorial leader Ferdinand E. Marcos. She was well known for her shoe addiction, and would regularly spend millions of dollars during shopping trips to New York, Rome and Copenhagen. Marcos bought up swathes of Manhattan, but declined an offer to buy the Empire State Building as she deemed it “Too ostentatious”. With this kind of a back story Byrne obviously had a lot to draw from, but never being an auteur content to tell the story the audience expected, he focuses on one of the more obscure relationships in Marcos’s story: Estrella Crumpus was a servant in the Imelda’s family home as she grew up in Manila, and reappeared during key points during her lifetime.

The album takes the form of a 22 track song cycle that starts with the young Imelda’s life in Manila during the Thirties and finishes with her removal from the Malacañang Palace as part of the four day People Power Revolution in 1986. Given the infamy that still surrounds Marcos to this very day, Byrne has called upon some of a cast of incredibly strong female performers. Names like Cyndi Lauper (whose performance Byrne described as being “amazingly fine tuned and very impressive”) and Tori Amos will immediately resonate with music fans of all ages, but Byrne also displays his impeccable ear for new and exciting music: Santigold, Roisin Murphy, Camille and Sia all take turns in giving voice to Marcos and Estrella, as do Soul sirens Alice Russell and Sharon Jones. Natalie Merchant, Martha Wainwright and Country favourite Alison Moorer contribute and there’s an unlikely duet between Disco legend Candi Staton and St Vincent. As was previewed in this weeks Recommends, the album starts with a stirring prelude from Florence Welch, whose vocals soar above Byrne’s music and Cook’s textured production.

For more information visit David Byrne’s website.

As Jack White explained during a Q&A that followed the premier of Davvis Guggenheim’s documentary ‘It Might Get Loud’ at the Toronto Film Festival “There’s a lot you can do when you have unlimited means and unlimited opportunities, but over the past few years I’ve worked on projects that are both limited and constricting because those limits bring creativity. You learn more”.

This mind set has pervaded throughout White’s career. The most obvious example being the guitar and drum line up of The White Stripes, something almost unheard of when they first caught the attention of music fans all over the world (these days of course it’s nothing out of the ordinary, with Blood Red Shoes, Black Keys, Two Gallants and, to a much more demanding end, Lightening Bolt all adhering to the same format). Then there was their studio of choice: East London’s Toe Rag Studios, a love letter to the golden days of studios like Sun and Motown where analogue equipment and limited mics are favoured over multi-track digital recording and computer technology.

The same ‘less is more’ adage informed Jack and Meg’s Canadian tour, the subject of the film ‘The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights’. Playing shows in every province – something that very few bands, if any, had done before – Jack and Meg made a point of playing a secret show in each town… there aren’t many bands of The White Stripes renown who would play shows in bars, pool halls, transit buses or pleasure boats. The last of these secret shows took White’s statement of austerity to its most logical conclusion: their infamous ‘One-note Show’ in St. Johns, which was denied entry in to the Guinness Book of Records. “The Guinness book of world records has refused this entry as the shortest concert of all time citing it’s not interesting enough” joked White at a later press conference. The ‘One-Note Show’ is the opening scene of ‘Under Great White Norhten Lights’, which will receive a proper cinematic release in the UK this March.

Jack’s latest project takes a something of sidestep from his usual spartan way of doing things. Whilst it still promises to be suitably stripped back, it looks like White has achieved an ambition that he could have well been harbouring since childhood: he’s making an album with ‘The Queen of Rockabilly’ Wanda Jackson. Rock & Roll hall of Fame inductee Jackson came to prominence during the Fifties, and was a contemporary of Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley, with whom she had a whirlwind romance. White has called on band mates from The Dead Weather and The Raconteurs to help with the recording, the first spoils of which will be a 7” on White’s Third Man imprint featuring a cover of Amy Winehouse’s ‘You Know That I’m No Good’. Keep an eye on Barclaycard Mercury Prize Recommends for more news in the coming weeks.

There’s an unspoken affinity that comes with being a music fan, something that was more than apparent when Thom Yorke spent the evening co-presenting Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Show. Peterson is a tastemaker of great renown, but the Radiohead front man more than held his own when the pair went back to back during the two-hour show.

One of his first selections came from hotly tipped producer Floating Points, also known as Sam Shepherd. Shepherd first came to the attention of the Capital’s beat making fraternity through the CDR Sessions, a monthly night at one of London’s best loved basement clubs Plastic People. The sessions were set up by Tony Nwachukwu of Attica Blues and were an outlet for producers, both established and up-and-coming, to air their unreleased work on a top end sound system in front of an appreciative crowd. Floating Points has gone from strength to strength and he’ll be unveiling his full live band at Peterson’s Worldwide Awards in February.

Yorke and bandmate Johnny Greenwood regularly post playlists on Radiohead blog, and anyone who’s paid attention will know already that the singer is a massive supporter of the UK’s burgeoning Dub Step scene, particularly favouring the more abstract and meditative aspects of the genre that in some respects mirror Radiohead’s more recent albums. Proving themselves to be both in time and in tune, Yorke and Peterson played tunes by Pangaea, on Leeds based label Hessle Audio, and Darkstar, the latest artists on the revered Hyperdub label to cause a stir amongst fans of future music. The Darkstar track ‘Need You’ was the soundtrack to one of Yorke’s recent trips to the States

As well as all the upfront selections, Gilles and Thom found time to look back in to the archives, playing music by Charles Mingus, Sun Ra, Can and Joao Gilberto. During a chat Yorke spoke about the band he recently put together to play the songs of his ‘Eraser’ album and even spilled the beans on Radiohead’s current recording sessions.

“Radiohead is still doing stuff. In fact, we’re starting another session for a month in two days. And the Eraser band that I got together, we’re going to do something, hopefully in April, but I think that’s just more gigs. And then maybe that’ll lead somewhere, as well. There’s lots of stuff going on, but not enough coming out yet…My biggest trouble at the moment is trying to keep up, but I prefer it that way.”

You can listen back to the show on BBC iPlayer until Wednesday 27^th January.

Elbow’s inexorable ascent from much-loved underdogs to well respected National treasures hasn’t left the boys from Bury daunted. They’re currently writing for the follow up album to the Mercury Prize Album of the Year ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’, but don’t feel like there’s any pressure on them to rush things.

Drummer Richard Jupp, who was involved in the Sudan 365 project that featured recently on Recommends, spoke about it in a recent interview. “We did the bulk of the last album without a record label. So we know what pressure is, the only real pressure comes from ourselves, to create. Thankfully our record label are aware of that and respect that”

His band mate Guy Garvey is similarly pragmatic about their latest endeavour. In a recent interview with Billboard magazine the singer admitted there was something alluring about finishing the forthcoming record sooner rather than later and take advantage of the many plaudits they’ve received, but ultimately it’s the music that matters. “It’s tempting to try and capitalise on this one’s success, but I think it’s more important that we make sure it’s a good record. We’ve got a bunch of stuff we’ve been writing on tour that we’re very slowly knocking into shape,” Garvey said. “We’re trying to do just five or six days of writing every few weeks, and then we’re going to collate it, and do the same thing again for a year and half”. Whatever they come up with, it’s sure to be worth the wait!

Behind every song there’s a story and, it seems, behind every band and artists there’s a potential biopic. The appetite for films based on the lives of famous musicians hasn’t waned over the past decade, although the emphasis for 2010 seems to be shifting from American idols like Ray Charles and Johnny Cash to homegrown heroes.

Perhaps the highest profile flick of the moment is Sam Taylor Wood’s portrait of a young John Lennon in Nowhere Boy, currently in cinemas. The film, based on a book by Lennon’s half sister, follows the exploits of the young Liverpudlian through a tricky childhood and features an original score by Goldfrapp, who are currently recording their fifth album Head First.

One of the first cinematic releases of the New Year follows the trials and tribulations of one of music’s most idiosyncratic performers: Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll brings the life of Ian Dury to celluloid, with Lord of the Rings star Andy Serkis in the lead role. Serkis, who brought Gollum to life in Peter Jackson’s blockbusting trilogy, turns in a transformative role that captures the disabled singer so perfectly that he’s already been nominated for Best Actor for the 2010 British Independent Film Awards.

Baxter Dury, who at six years old appeared alongside his dad on the cover of the classic album ‘New Boots And Panties’, was taken away by the performance. “The film is powerful. It triggers stuff, emotional stuff. When I first saw it, I didn’t sleep for a week. I would dream about the film. I’d see dad as Andy Serkis. It was very strange”

Baxter isn’t the only person close to Dury to celebrate Serkis. Chas Jankel, Dury’s writing partner who’s played in the film by Tom Hughes, was so impressed with Serkis’s eerily uncanny vocal performances during the recording of the film he recently invited the actor to sing with The Blockheads at a London show.

Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, which also stars Ray Winstone, Noel Clarke and McKenzie Crook, is out on January 8th. Watch the trailer here.

The Capital is renowned the world over for its vibrant music scene, with hundreds of gigs happening each and every night of the week. Obviously, there are illustrious venues, such as Koko, Shepherd’s Bush Empire and Brixton Academy, that have been serving London’s music lovers for generation upon generation, but without the smaller venues, the pubs and clubs that every neighborhood harbors, the music scene we know and love would surely dissapear.

There are a couple of interesting gigs taking place in the coming weeks and months that see bands and artists swapping larger stages for much more intimate environments. First off, Nick Mulvey, best known as the Portico Quartet’s hang man, will be picking up his acoustic guitar and heading to one of Clapton’s best kept secrets. Formerly a builders merchants on the Lower Clapton Road, Biddle Brothers is now a rather laid back bar that still maintains the outwardly appearance of a hardware store. Leaving the hang behind, Nick will be performing his own songs, which are largely informed by his musical travels. Adopting various different playing styles, Nick also sings in English, Congolese and Swahili, although the feel of his music is truly universal. Joining Mr Mulvey will be long time friend and Portico associate Jamie Woon, another formidable young artist who, like Nick and the rest of the Quartet, is involved in South London’s One Taste Collective. They’ll be appearing at Biddle Brothers on Thursday 19th November.

Given Portico’s rich history of busking, it’s not entirely unusual to see members performing in a pub as small as Biddle Brothers. One band who haven’t played in the back room of a boozer for a long while is The Maccabees. After a celebrated second album and massive UK tour, on which they performed to thousands of loyal fans, the band will be doing something a little more low key for a forthcoming show. They’ve decided to unplug the amplifiers and play an acoustic set in the upstairs room of their favourite local pub. Times and dates are yet to be decided, but to start the guessing going the pub is somewhere in Borough and has been a favourite haunt of the band for some time. Keep an eye on Barclaycard Mercury Prize Recommends for news of this exciting event.

This month’s Barclaycard Mercury Prize Session with The Hospital Club welcomes two of the Country’s most idiosyncratic artists. Although Metronomy, or  Joseph Mount as he’s otherwise known, and Roots Manuva aka Rodney Smith share little in the way of background – Mount grew up in Totnes, an artistic enclave in North Devon, Smith a born and bred South Londoner – the particularly British mode that their musical styles follow make them ideal comrades. As Roots himself once put it in an interview “The English have always got it wrong: The Beatles tried to make R&B and came up with something completely different. The Specials tried to play Reggae, but ended up with this weird kind of Ska. And as for Hip Hop? Well, we tried that and ended up with Drum & Bass. It’s all about celebrating the mistakes”.

This notion has been a quiet mainstay throughout Roots Manuva’s peerless back catalogue. On its release in 1999 ‘Brand New Second Hand’ bashment bass and stark, jarring drums seemed completely apart from anything happening in Hip Hop or Ragga on either side of the Atlantic, but there’s no doubting the subtle influence the album had on the Capital’s nascent Grime scene. Things took a turn for the heavier with ‘Run Come Save Me’, a bass-laden odyssey that spawned ‘Witness (1 Hope)’, one of British Street Music’s finest moments, and was counted amongst the Mercury Prize Albums of the Year. Following on a few year later, ‘Awfully Deep’ set Roots unmistakable cadence to an even more musical backing (a must check is ‘The Haunting’, a piece performed with the Easy Access Orchestra) and confirmed what many had suspected since day one: that in Mister Manoo, the UK boasted a talent that easily transcended the often limiting parameters of the indigenous Hip Hop scene.

But even though audiences far further afield from the traditional UK Hip Hop crowd were immersing themselves in his music, Rodney was keen to point out that many people were missing the point. In an interview he once explained the methods behind his music. “[My music] is about merging the most unlikely bedfellows, but no-one seems to hear it. I tried to eliminate the more raga influences but people still ask me about them. I’m like, ‘don’t you hear the 80s synth pop inflections?” and it’s these inflections that prevailed with his fourth album proper ‘Slime & Reason’. As has been well documented, Toddla T was responsible for much of the album’s freshness, but who better to extrapolate 80’s Synth Pop than Metronomy? Having already turned in a remix for Awfully Deep’s title track, Mount worked with Roots on one of the albums cornerstone moments, ‘Let The Spirit’

On ‘Nights Out’, the second Metronomy long player, Gabriel Stebbing and Oscar Cash joined Mount and added a tighter rhythm and more song orientated structure to the now identifiable Metronomy sound, delivering twisted gems like ‘Thing For Me’ and ‘Heartbreaker’ Mount described it as “the soundtrack to a bad weekend”, but that didn’t stop critics heaping praise for its original and awkward take on classic electronic Pop music. NME awarded it a glittering 9/10 whilst The Independent on Sunday simply stated it to be “A Modern Classic”. Not to say that the response from the public was similarly unanimous, but challenging people conceptions lies at the very heart of Mount’s modus operandi. “We had a hilarious time supporting Kate Nash” he told a journalist “every night the audience were split in half: half were cheering, half were booing!”

In the months since ‘Nights Out’ Metronomy has once again grown, with Stebbing leaving to concentrate on his own band Your Twenties and new members Anna Prior (formerly of Lightspeed Champion) and Gbenga Adelekan have stepped up to drums and bass respectively. “We used to do everything on a computer, which wasn’t very reliable”, explained Mount “and now we have real musicians, who are at least half as reliable”. The latest release, the ‘Not Made For Love EP’, doesn’t feature the new band but is once again the product of Mount left to his own devices. Its synth ballad title song is as touching as a Casio keyboard will allow and closes the cover on the Nights Out era whilst gently hinting towards what can be expected of the new album.

The Session takes place on Thursday 12th November and you can win tickets right here on the website, via our Myspace page and by tuning in to John Kennedy’s Xposure show on XFM. For more music from Roots Manuva, keep an eye out for the forthcoming from Rodney’s label Banana Klan and a Dub version of Slime & Reason that he’s been working on with DJ WrongTom. Metronomy will have a new album out in the goodness of time, but Joe is also working with cocknbullkid, a.k.a East London’s rightful air to the Wonky Pop crown Anita Blay.