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BARBAROSSA play a special free show at the Waiting Room

What’s the point in life if you’re not prepared to roll the dice from time to time, to take a leap of faith? There were plenty of reasons for James Mathé, the unforgettable voice behind London’s Barbarossa, to keep the course after the release of his acclaimed debut album, Chemical Campfires in 2008 on Fence Records: a flourishing reputation as one of Britain’s most intrepid acoustic troubadours, a prominent spot in Johnny Flynn and Jose Gonzales’ backing bands, the roar of applause from the audience at a sold-out show at New York’s Bowery Ballroom still ringing in his ears. But Mathé had other ideas.

“I loved the acoustic scene, but knew it was not all I was about,” remembers Mathé, recently seen on tour with indie favourites Polica and Junip. “So I dug out all my old Casiotone keyboards, drum machines and analogue synths and just started writing.” The result is one of the most exciting reinventions of 2013, rewiring his sensitive, tender missives from young adulthood into big elegiac electro anthems, tinted with huge spectral gasps of reverb, slow jam drum samples and searing organ melodies. Call his new direction a gamble, call it what you want – critics are calling it “skewed but wonderful pop… inspiring” (The Line of Best Fit) and “the perfect soundtrack to gazing out of a rain-stained window wondering why she hasn’t called you back after you left three thousand voicemails” (Noisey).

If there’s a gloriously loose, tenebrous feel to songs like ‘Pagliacco’ and the pizzicato synth-lined ‘Turbine’, it might have something to do with the Londoner’s organic approach to songwriting. “I just sit down with my dictaphone and make sense of what comes out afterwards. The best stuff usually comes when I am hungover or not really thinking. The minute I try to be clever with words, it just sounds shit,” Mathé laughs. Instead, the lyrics at the heart of new single ‘The Load’ burn with a simple, simmering poignancy: “I would never take this for granted, I am forever in your hands,” coos its enigmatic chorus.  

Recently signed to iconic London label Memphis Industries (Field Music, POLIÇA, The Go! Team, Dutch Uncles), Mathé is inspired by everything from the ’70s soul men Stevie Wonder and Levon Helm to Dirty Projectors and D’Angelo (“his grooves are amazing, so simple and tight,”) but claims it was Jack White who shaped the gritty, evocative sound that belies his new material. “I read an interview with him talking about the process of recording totally analogue and decided I just had to make this record this way,” he explains. “I have always been obsessed with vintage analogue gear and really fancied getting back to basics. I was tired of trying to iron out all the mistakes in modern production. I wanted to record live to tape, keeping all the mistakes in, warts and all.”

Tender and triumphant, Mathé is emerging as one of Britain’s most versatile and adventurous songwriting talents. Some gambles, it seems, are destined to pay off. 

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Support from SINAH

The instrumental side of music has always played an important role for Sinah. She never saw herself as a singer until recently, when she started adding vocals to her music. Sinah had played Bass and Keyboard in various bands before eventually deciding to release her own music.

A desire to challenge herself saw Sinah make a move to Brooklyn, New York where she lived with musicians and founded an appreciation for American Rap and the versatility of the Hip Hop culture.

When she moved to London in 2010, she was immediately influenced by the bubbling electronic & experimental music scene here. Artists such as Joanna Newsom, Nicholas Jaar, Lorn and Bonobo opened her eyes to a whole new world of possibilities.

Sinah’s music is a mixture of electronic styles and has been compared to the likes of the XX, Grimes, Alt – J, Nicholas Jaar

‘I don’t try to follow a certain genre but simply produce whatever feels right for me at the moment – whether that be an acoustic vibe or heavy electronic productions.’

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Andrea Tirone, the 27-year-old Italian behind Mind Enterprises, is a perennial outsider. Growing up in the sunny climes of Turin, it was only a matter of time until the skinny, bespectacled music obsessive – whose music channels LCD Sound System’s dance-punk spirit and the exotic mystery of Jai Paul – would plan his escape to London.

From a childhood obsessed with the best melodically inclined pop music from The Beatles to Nirvana, he’s graduated to making his own bewitching brand of electronica packed full of wistful emotion. At the hazy end of last August, his debut single ‘Summer War’ was released on Double Denim Records, a frenzied tug of war between sweet continental guitars and headache-inducing pot-and-pan clashes. It was soon after this that Because Music (home to fellow leftfield pop auteurs Django Django and Metronomy) came on board, now the ‘My Girl’ EP is the net result – a collection of songs that transcend any geographical location and are more like flashbacks to a lucid dream than any structured melody jotted down in a notebook.

Tirone explains his instinctive writing process, “I think storytelling is something magic and you don’t know how you’re doing it. It’s not conscious,” he says. As a result of the dream-like state his mind inhabits, his lyrics are more like a mantra, looping and weaving in and out of heavy beats and samples, “Lyrics are the last part of the process. I think they are important but a song never starts from that – it’s just an emotion, abstract. But lyrics are always about people. Mostly girls,” he smiles.

It’s this passionate nature which makes Mind Enterprises’ soundscape so brash, beautiful, intuitive and full of imagination. With him now hard at work recording his debut it’s also perhaps the reason why he’ll succeed. “The power of the mind is the most important thing,” says Tirone, “Music is something to escape from reality.”

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