hypersongs

Metronomy

Joseph Mount's electronic pop group from Totnes, Devon, whose Mercury-nominated The English Riviera (2011) holds "The Look".

A bedroom project

Metronomy began in 1999 in Totnes, Devon, as Joseph Mount's teenage bedroom project, the name reportedly influenced by the band names Autechre and Funkstorung. Mount studied music and visual art in Brighton from 2002, where he worked the door at the Sabbath club, and began as a laptop and DJ act. His debut Pip Paine (Pay the 5000 Pounds You Owe) came out on Holiphonic on February 14, 2005, and Oscar Cash and the schoolfriend Gabriel Stebbing joined to make a trio. Nights Out followed on Because Music in September 2008, with singles including "Radio Ladio" and "Holiday". Stebbing left in May 2009, after recording the bass for The English Riviera.

Olugbenga Adelekan and Anna Prior joined in 2011 and the group became a quartet. Love Letters (March 10, 2014) reached 7 in the UK, Summer 08 (July 1, 2016) 20, Metronomy Forever (September 13, 2019) 15 and Small World (February 18, 2022) 7. Michael Lovett joined in 2018, and the band signed to Ninja Tune with "Nice Town" in March 2024. Mount has remixed Gorillaz, Goldfrapp, Franz Ferdinand, Klaxons and Lady Gaga, among others, and produced Roots Manuva and Nicola Roberts.

The English Riviera

The English Riviera was released on April 8, 2011 in Ireland, April 11 in the UK and July 26 in the US, produced by Mount at the Smokehouse in London and Motorbass in Paris, 45:04, all tracks written by Mount. Harriet Wheeler played violin, Roxanne Clifford and Marion Cassan sang, and Ash Workman did handclaps and engineered and mixed it. The singles were "She Wants", "The Look" (March 11, 2011), "The Bay" and "Everything Goes My Way". It reached 28 in the UK, went gold, was nominated for the 2011 Mercury Prize, and NME and Uncut placed it second and third among the albums of 2011. The video for "The Bay" won a D&AD Wood Pencil in 2012.

NME gave it 9 out of 10, the Guardian four stars and Pitchfork 6.4; Resident Advisor's Chris Todd wrote the sound is bigger, the record full of ambition and BBC 6 Music's Marc Riley called it the perfect modern pop record. Mount told Gigwise it was meant to be an affectionate kick up the arse, and in 2014 that it was largely misunderstood as a love letter to Devon, more an attempt to make that place seem more interesting. A tenth-anniversary edition with six unreleased tracks came out on April 30, 2021.

Albums

Songs

  • The Look The English Riviera · 2011

    The second single from The English Riviera, written in a Paris apartment and the band's most played song.

  • The Bay The English Riviera · 2011

    Track seven of The English Riviera and its third single, a triumphant anthem for Torbay in Devon.

Sources

  1. Metronomy, Wikipedia
  2. The English Riviera (album), Wikipedia
  3. Metronomy discography, Wikipedia
  4. Hustling Brighton, escaping Paris, Loud and Quiet (2014-04-05)