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Metronomy (UK)
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March 19, 20:00
YotaSpace 
Beginning as a scrappy, lo-fi side project and growing into one of the more creative acts mixing rock and electronic music, Metronomy is the project of London-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Joseph Mount. Named after the musical term for the measurement of time by an instrument, Mount started Metronomy in 1999 as a side project to the other bands he played with, using an old computer that his father gave him to record songs. Metronomy's first full-band lineup also included keyboardist/saxophonist Oscar Cash and keyboardist/bassist Gabriel Stebbing. Prior to Metronomy, Mount and Stebbing played together in bands such as the Upsides, a pop group the pair described as "the original Busted," and the Customers, with whom they played in university.
When his cousin Cash joined Metronomy, it became the trio's main project. With a sound inspired by Devo and David Bowie to N.E.R.D. and Pavement, Metronomy earned buzz for their engaging live shows as well as official and unofficial remixes of tracks by Gorillaz, Architecture in Helsinki, Sebastien Tellier, Kate Nash, U2, and Britney Spears. Their debut single, "You Could Easily Have Me," arrived in spring 2005 on the Holiphonic imprint, and the full-length Pip Paine (Pay the £5000 You Owe) was released that summer.
In 2006, Metronomy signed to Because Music; the following year, the single Radio Ladio became their first and only release on its Need Now Future imprint. The label also issued 2008's Nights Out, which introduced their eclectic sound to a wider audience thanks to singles such as Heartbreaker and My Heart Rate Rapid. In 2009, Stebbing left Metronomy to focus on his other project, Your Twenties. Bassist Gbenga Adelekan and former Lightspeed Champion drummer Anna Prior joined the fold for 2011's The English Riviera, which boasted a sleeker sound than the band's previous work. It was their most commercially successful album to date, reaching number 28 on the U.K. charts, selling more than 60,000 copies, and earning them a Mercury Prize nomination. The album's popularity led to a sold-out show at Royal Albert Hall as well as comprehensive tours of both Europe and North America.
Mount and crew went in a very different direction for Metronomy's fourth album, Love Letters. Taking inspiration from acts such as The Supremes, The Zombies, and Sly & the Family Stone, the band recorded at Toe Rag, an all-analog London studio frequented by indie rock bands such as the White Stripes and the Cribs. The singles "I'm Aquarius" and "Love Letters" - which boasted a video directed by Michel Gondry - signaled the album's mix of vintage warmth and cutting-edge pop ahead of its March 2014 release.
Given the critical and commercial success of The English Riviera, Metronomy could have easily spent another album or two expanding on its polished, erudite pop. However, they're too mercurial a band to do the obvious thing. On Love Letters, they abandon their previous album's sleek precision for fuzzy analog charm. Metronomy recorded the album at London's Toe Rag studio, a fixture of British indie rock, and Joe Mount and company imbue these songs with the room's warmth and intimacy.
Musically and emotionally, Love Letters is rawer than what came before it, trading breezy synth pop for insistent psych-rock and soul influences. The main carryover from The English Riviera is the increasing sophistication, and melancholy, in Mount's songwriting. Previously, his best songs were playful and ever so slightly emotional; on Love Letters, he flips this formula, penning songs filled with lost love, regrets, and just enough wit to sting.
The album opens with three striking portraits of heartbreak: "The Upsetter" equals its distance with its urgency, capping it all with an achingly gorgeous guitar solo. "I'm Aquarius" traces the fallout of a star-crossed relationship impressionistically, with girl group-style "shoop doop"s almost overpowering Mount's reasons why it didn't work ("you're a novice/I'm a tourist"), as if memories of his ex crowd out everything else. "Monstrous" turns Metronomy's signature jaunty keyboards Baroque and paranoid, with a doomy organ that closes in when Mount sings "hold on tight to everything you love," and a counterpoint that captures the way loneliness and heartbreak circle each other.
These songs set the stage perfectly for the desperate romance of "Love Letters" itself, which updates punchy, late-'60s Motown drama so well that it's easy to imagine the Four Tops singing it. Here and on "Month of Sundays's" acid rock vistas, Metronomy's nods to the past feel more like footnotes than following too closely in anyone's footsteps. However, they sound more comfortable with their own quirks as well, giving more muscle to "Boy Racers" than their previous instrumentals, and more depth to "Reservoir," which is the closest it gets to a typical Metronomy song (if there is such a thing anymore).
Confessional and insular, Love Letters is the work of a band willing to take pop success on their own terms and reveal a different - but just as appealing - side of their artistry in the process.
Metronomy will play their biggest Russian show in March '15, supporting their new collection.
More info
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