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The idea of a home-listening record from Bicep feels suspiciously oxymoronic. Like Orbital and Avicii before them, the Belfast-born duo of Matt McBriar and Andy Ferguson are one of those electronic acts designed for the sweeping euphoria of big summer stages.
Isles, their second album, should be blowing the cobwebs off the Southern Hemisphereâs festival circuit as you read this. Instead, the pandemic intervened, so Bicep are rolling out a domesticated version of their music, promising a âmuch, much harderâ version of the same material to be delivered in person once itâs safe to tread the boards. No wonder Bicep sounded so miserable on comeback single âAtlas,â a song whose Ofra Haza sample and synth squiggles suggest an (inverted) cross between Richie Hawtinâs F.U.S.E. project and the Sisters of Mercy: the live shutdown has left them like heirs to a knife factory in the age of big soup.
London-based Northern Irish duo Bicep have shared their new single, Sundial .
Having scooped Best Track at DJ Mag s Best of British Awards last year, the track is the final single to be taken from Andy Ferguson and Matt McBriar s forthcoming Isles album, out 22nd January via Ninja Tune.
Coming off the back of the recent release of Saku , Sundial contains a sample from ‘Jab Andhera Hota Hai’, taken from the 1973 Bollywood film Raja Rani.
The pair said, Indian music has always fascinated us since the blog days, discovering it was the possible birthplace of Acid house via Charanjit Singh’s Ten Ragas to a disco beat. Living in East London, Indian influence and music is everywhere and over the past few years we’ve both become huge fans of Bollywood film scores, particularly the female soprano performances. The haunting melancholic epicness really strikes a chord with both of us. We feel we can relate to how similar it is to the Irish folk we grew up around from the li