Metronomy
On Ninja Tune
BIOGRAPHY
Metronomy have opened a new chapter of their long and colourful musical life. Naturally, it’s a collaborative and generous one, where band founder and central figure Joe Mount is shifting into the role of producer, creating musical worlds where new singers and artists can add their voice to Mount’s feeling-full, celebratory beats and instrumentals. This is music that is entirely at home on the dancefloor, and which takes you home afterwards, in the sonic version of a l...
Metronomy have opened a new chapter of their long and colourful musical life. Naturally, it’s a collaborative and generous one, where band founder and central figure Joe Mount is shifting into the role of producer, creating musical worlds where new singers and artists can add their voice to Mount’s feeling-full, celebratory beats and instrumentals. This is music that is entirely at home on the dancefloor, and which takes you home afterwards, in the sonic version of a lively but very cosy taxi ride.
The era of the Posse EPs reached fans in September 2021, when Mount released Volume 1, a five track collaboration with a bubbling selection of new friends including Peckham’s Pinty and Biig Piig. The following year he released the most recent Metronomy album, Small World, which continued the party by inviting artists from Nadeem Din-Gabisi to Katy J Pearson onto a special remix edition. ‘Insane’ crowds at their most recent Glastonbury topped off an amazing summer. Now, he’s releasing The Posse EP Volume 2 in a new relationship with Ninja Tune.
“As a whole I want to emulate the stuff that I was really taken with when I was in my teens: producer records, Mo’Wax releases or Handsome Boy Modeling School,” he says.
“But it’s also about just being comfortable with who I am as an artist. I’m still in this really fortunate position where people are interested in the music. I can have a bit more fun. Doing it with a new home, from a new place, is really exciting and it’s quite liberating. It’s a re-set.”
The Posse EPs represent a way of continuing to connect to new music whilst embracing his own long view and decades in the dance. “It’s realising you have a value within the music industry. For newer artists you can do something. You mean something. You have a reach they don’t and they’re excited by it. It’s a great way of feeling connected to a wave like the one I was part of.”
Every new chapter is, of course, a continuation, especially with a much-loved band like Metronomy who hold so many collective memories and experiences in their zesty, always-endearing albums, award-winning videos and unforgettable live shows. “You know the Internet Time Machine? I found my old MySpace. In my influences I put Devo, Frank Zappa, The Neptunes, Daft Punk and this Dutch singer called Solex. That’s still where it’s coming from, although I might put OutKast in there too.”
Hearing OutKast’s Ms Jackson on the radio as a skateboarding teenager opened up a new aspect of the musical universe which quickly led to the joys of Missy Elliot et al. In his earlier teen times, Mount was a young drummer, into grunge, specifically Nirvana, Weezer and Green Day. His parents had taken him to gigs, memorably, Van Morrison and Blondie. Hearing songs like k.d. lang’s Constant Craving around the house made it somewhat surreal when, in his later musical life, lang rang him up to discuss a remix.
Growing up in Devon’s epicentre of alternative lifestyles, Totnes, meant exposure to the after-effects of the 1990s free party scene in the South West, although by the time he came of age the sounds had shifted. “It was strictly drum & bass in Totnes. There were slightly enterprising people who’d put on nights at the leisure centre. It was so exciting that there was something happening. It was a great social thing.”
At home and with friends, Mount would listen to then-new labels like Warp, Ninja Tune and sister label Big Dada. “I got really obsessed with this DJ Vadim record. Roots Manuva is still the best British rapper ever. The Herbaliser was pretty big in Totnes. Ninja are still really excited about music and that’s infectious. They’re a very cool label, still.”
Arriving in the late noughts, Metronomy came through as part of a new wave that were intricately connected to DJs and club nights. They expressed heady dancefloor celebration with an indie aesthetic and were propelled into the popular fabric of Millennial life. In 2011, a Mercury Prize nomination followed, for The English Riviera. The cross-genre feel of the Posse EPs makes even more sense when you remember that Metronomy represent a time when previously rigid boundaries between musical styles began falling apart: “The idea it’s only one genre you’re into broke down. Everyone’s tastes became more diverse.”
Longtime festival headliners, Metronomy remain a crowd favourite, packing out venues and the biggest of big stages for decades. “At gigs, you often see groups of friends coming to relive a memory, to be together and enjoy the music. There’s a whole load of people who just come to our gigs and snog. I think maybe they met at one of our shows. I think I make quite nice sonic worlds, places where people can enjoy being, and returning back to.”
The Posse EP Vol 2 brings more memory-making music into the world. It’s revivifying and energising, for the artist as much as for us the listeners. “The more I do stuff with other people,” says Mount, “the more excited I get about doing my own music again... For me it’s a way of separating myself from the last 20 years of what I’ve done. You want to be proud of it – and then move on.”
Metronomy
On Ninja Tune
Latest News
BIOGRAPHY
Metronomy have opened a new chapter of their long and colourful musical life. Naturally, it’s a collaborative and generous one, where band founder and central figure Joe Mount is shifting into the role of producer, creating musical worlds where new singers and artists can add their voice to Mount’s feeling-full, celebratory beats and instrumentals. This is music that is entirely at home on the dancefloor, and which takes you home afterwards, in the sonic version of a lively but very cosy ...
Metronomy have opened a new chapter of their long and colourful musical life. Naturally, it’s a collaborative and generous one, where band founder and central figure Joe Mount is shifting into the role of producer, creating musical worlds where new singers and artists can add their voice to Mount’s feeling-full, celebratory beats and instrumentals. This is music that is entirely at home on the dancefloor, and which takes you home afterwards, in the sonic version of a lively but very cosy taxi ride.
The era of the Posse EPs reached fans in September 2021, when Mount released Volume 1, a five track collaboration with a bubbling selection of new friends including Peckham’s Pinty and Biig Piig. The following year he released the most recent Metronomy album, Small World, which continued the party by inviting artists from Nadeem Din-Gabisi to Katy J Pearson onto a special remix edition. ‘Insane’ crowds at their most recent Glastonbury topped off an amazing summer. Now, he’s releasing The Posse EP Volume 2 in a new relationship with Ninja Tune.
“As a whole I want to emulate the stuff that I was really taken with when I was in my teens: producer records, Mo’Wax releases or Handsome Boy Modeling School,” he says.
“But it’s also about just being comfortable with who I am as an artist. I’m still in this really fortunate position where people are interested in the music. I can have a bit more fun. Doing it with a new home, from a new place, is really exciting and it’s quite liberating. It’s a re-set.”
The Posse EPs represent a way of continuing to connect to new music whilst embracing his own long view and decades in the dance. “It’s realising you have a value within the music industry. For newer artists you can do something. You mean something. You have a reach they don’t and they’re excited by it. It’s a great way of feeling connected to a wave like the one I was part of.”
Every new chapter is, of course, a continuation, especially with a much-loved band like Metronomy who hold so many collective memories and experiences in their zesty, always-endearing albums, award-winning videos and unforgettable live shows. “You know the Internet Time Machine? I found my old MySpace. In my influences I put Devo, Frank Zappa, The Neptunes, Daft Punk and this Dutch singer called Solex. That’s still where it’s coming from, although I might put OutKast in there too.”
Hearing OutKast’s Ms Jackson on the radio as a skateboarding teenager opened up a new aspect of the musical universe which quickly led to the joys of Missy Elliot et al. In his earlier teen times, Mount was a young drummer, into grunge, specifically Nirvana, Weezer and Green Day. His parents had taken him to gigs, memorably, Van Morrison and Blondie. Hearing songs like k.d. lang’s Constant Craving around the house made it somewhat surreal when, in his later musical life, lang rang him up to discuss a remix.
Growing up in Devon’s epicentre of alternative lifestyles, Totnes, meant exposure to the after-effects of the 1990s free party scene in the South West, although by the time he came of age the sounds had shifted. “It was strictly drum & bass in Totnes. There were slightly enterprising people who’d put on nights at the leisure centre. It was so exciting that there was something happening. It was a great social thing.”
At home and with friends, Mount would listen to then-new labels like Warp, Ninja Tune and sister label Big Dada. “I got really obsessed with this DJ Vadim record. Roots Manuva is still the best British rapper ever. The Herbaliser was pretty big in Totnes. Ninja are still really excited about music and that’s infectious. They’re a very cool label, still.”
Arriving in the late noughts, Metronomy came through as part of a new wave that were intricately connected to DJs and club nights. They expressed heady dancefloor celebration with an indie aesthetic and were propelled into the popular fabric of Millennial life. In 2011, a Mercury Prize nomination followed, for The English Riviera. The cross-genre feel of the Posse EPs makes even more sense when you remember that Metronomy represent a time when previously rigid boundaries between musical styles began falling apart: “The idea it’s only one genre you’re into broke down. Everyone’s tastes became more diverse.”
Longtime festival headliners, Metronomy remain a crowd favourite, packing out venues and the biggest of big stages for decades. “At gigs, you often see groups of friends coming to relive a memory, to be together and enjoy the music. There’s a whole load of people who just come to our gigs and snog. I think maybe they met at one of our shows. I think I make quite nice sonic worlds, places where people can enjoy being, and returning back to.”
The Posse EP Vol 2 brings more memory-making music into the world. It’s revivifying and energising, for the artist as much as for us the listeners. “The more I do stuff with other people,” says Mount, “the more excited I get about doing my own music again... For me it’s a way of separating myself from the last 20 years of what I’ve done. You want to be proud of it – and then move on.”