Viard

Viard is an alias of Brighton-based electronic musician Justin Berkovi. He recorded an album under the Viard name, The Silver City, as part of the PerplexCity Alternate Reality Game (which has been put on an indefinite hold) in 2005, and came free with the Firebox exclusive starter pack for the game. A 12" of the track Heartfelt was put out in February 2006, and there has been nothing else released under the Viard name as the storyline involving the Viard character was completed. Heartfelt is available to listen to below, with downloads afterwards.

Metronomy

Metronomy was formed by Devon-born musician and producer Joseph Mount in 1999 after his dad gave him an old computer, where he began to compose music as a hobby, and was influenced by the likes of Aphex Twin and Kraftwerk. After relocating to Brighton in order to go to university there, the live aspect of the Metronomy name was perfected, with life-long friend Gabriel Stebbing and new friend Oscar Cash supporting him, originally under the name of The Food Groups, but this was dropped and the pair joined Metronomy. In September 2005, a six-track EP entitled Wonders was released as a promotional CD via the Spanish shoe company of the same name; this release had very little information attached to it until research by members of the unofficial Metronomy forum were able to purchase 5 copies from the company who promoted the event in December 2009, with it going online in January 2010. Half the tracks on the EP were part of forthcoming releases, while the other half are actually exclusive to this release. December 2005 saw the release of the You Could Easily Have Me single on the now-defunct Holiphonic label; this single was very well received by the press, and was a sign of things to come. In June 2006, the debut was fully released (it was originally a 500-only cloth case format); Pip Paine (Pay The £5000 You Owe) is personally one of my favourite albums of all time, and it's not hard to see why it received such good press, as with the debut there's a real sense of atmospheric joy at times; the demand was so popular that Because Music re-issued it again in November 2009 with four bonus tracks, including the exclusive In The D.O.D. The only other single from the album was Trick Or Treatz in the later part of the year, with a reworked 12" white label by South Central also getting good reception. Metronomy then went back into the studio to work on their follow-up; the first result from these sessions was November 2007's Radio Ladio, self-released by Metronomy on the Need Now Future Records label, which was more "poppy" than his previous work. After signing to French label Because Music shortly after this single, a trip back to the Pip Paine days followed up Radio Ladio, with April 2008's My Heart Rate Rapid featuring near-enough incomprehensible lyrics and a very strange video involving people in full body costumes dancing about. Two more singles followed before the album dropped: July's dark vacation tale of Holiday, and the harrowing tale of Heartbreaker, released just a week before Nights Out came out on 22nd September, and much like the debut, also received rave reviews. Post-album single A Thing For Me has become one of Metronomy's best known tracks, especially because of its karaoke-esque video. April's reissue of Radio Ladio was the last release that Gabriel was involved in, as he quit the band to focus on his own group of Your Twenties. Bassist Gbenga Adelekan and drummer Anna Prior joined the group shortly after in order to enhance their live performances. The most recent work from Mount was September's Not Made For Love EP, which, while keeping the lyrical themes from Nights Out, attempts to remake the Pip Paine sound that he originally created. You Could Easily Have Me's video is below, as are the downloads.

Kraftwerk

Düsseldorf duo Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider-Esleben were originally in the very short-lived kraturock group Organisation, before forming possibly one of the most influential electronic groups of all time in 1970: Kraftwerk. Kraftwerk's first three albums - their self-titled, Kraftwerk 2 and Ralf & Florian - were highly experimental and were actually quite different to the sound that Kraftwerk is known for, with a lot more brass and wind instrumentation used. With the addition of Wolfgang Flür in 1973 and Klaus Röder in 1974, the newly-formed quartet took their first foray into "pop" music, with the fourth album, 1974's Autobahn, having its mammoth 22-minute concept title track become a hit, with a single edit hitting #11 on the UK charts. After Röder left, the most recognisable Kraftwerk line-up was complete with the addition of Karl Bartos in 1975, who first worked with the group on their Radioactivity album. This was followed by two of the group's most recognisable albums: Trans-Europe Expres in 1977, and The Man-Machine in 1978, both of which became highly influential in themselves. The Eighties saw the group change their sound to more of a pure electronic sound, with the group's 1981 album Computer World demonstrating this, with the 1982 issue of The Model becoming the group's first UK #1. The penultimate album of original material the group, 1986's Electric Café, was not as successful as their previous albums, but this may have been down to the lost Techno Pop album, which should have been released instead of Electric Café (with the 1983 single Tour De France being the only material released from the album) but due to Hütter being involved in a cycling accident which ruled him out of any band activity for a while. 1991's rework album The Mix was, somewhat strangely appropriately, received with mixed reception, with the 1999 single Expo 2000 receiving better press, hitting #27 on the UK Singles Charts. The group's most recent work and newest material, 2003's Tour De France Soundtracks, was received with very positive press. The Robots' video is below, as are the downloads.

Aphex Twin

Upon the release of the Analogue Bubbebath (1) EP in September 1991, nobody would have expected Richard David James to become one of the most influential figures in electronic music since Kraftwerk in the 1970s. From his early techno works to his more recent pure electronic ventures, there is no denying that Mr. James doesn't make fantastic music. Xtal, the lead track from the essential Selected Ambient Works 85-92, can be heard below.

Downloads