Remember the days when music had got about as criminally colourless as it's ever been? The charts had been colonised by identikit vanilla popstrels, alternativity was split between sloggers soaking up the Britpop hangover and a combination of wallflowers and wallpaperers, and dance music was lorded over by a tiring technoscenti and numerous forgotten pan-flashers that were almost asinine in their anonymity. This was the landscape that most of today's younger twentysomethings had to battle through, sadly. Lucky some of them took the opportunity to get buffing up their prick-kicking shoes then, eh?
For instance, there's singer Robert Diament, an engaging figure whose ostensible sweetness covers up a heart of darkest drama and ears that have flapped archly through the years to such giants as Kate Bush and Scritti Poliiti – anyone that dared to put the art into smart, essentially. And then, for another instance, there's avuncular bleep urchin Luke Busby, whose motto may well be "twiddle me this", and whose unending search for new noise has led him onto some mightily squirrelly floors and taught him that just because it's pop doesn't mean it can't also haemorrhage your stereo.
Both wasted no time in taking tentative steps along a particularly left-leaning musical yellow brick road, but, by the tried'n'tested random route of studying together in the capital, they soon developed in their own right as a match made in heaven. Or indeed in any other glamorous metropolitan nightspot you'd care to mention. And so they plotted and schemed. And wrote loads of songs about lowlifes and nightlife, and ones that would've bedded down nicely on New Order's 'Low-Life' and scared the bejeesus out of much of the Pet Shop Boys' 'Nightlife'. And thus was Temposhark born.
Fair to say they've been on something of a feeding frenzy since then too. 2006 has seen tracks circulating that have led to all kinds of discerning eyelids being batted at them. It's afforded them the opportunity to collaborate with celebrated chanteuse Imogen Heap (Frou Frou), Decca's violin star Sophie Solomon, legendary producers Guy Sigsworth (Madonna/Björk/Lamb), Sean McGhee (Robyn/Sugababes/Kate Havnevik/Frou Frou), Kate Havnevik (Norwegian songstress/Royksopp collaborator), Camille (EMI France), Carmen Rizzo (Seal/Oakenfold/Alanis Morissette) and even a spot of song writing with Killing Joke bassist Youth. And it's watched them devouring dancefloors in some of the most salubrious and progressive venues the country has to offer, not to mention live shows at the prestigious Tate Britain art gallery and the ICA in the pipeline.
"There's not a wasted moment, not a solitary skippable song on the whole of The Invisible Line. A lot of this is owed to the fantastic, fanatic-grade nuances overlayed by the one and only Guy Sigsworth, soundtracking vocalist Robert Diament's velvet growl with James Bond-worthy moments of swooping strings and cascading authentic piano, before Luke Busby's beatsmithing creates moments of sparse, Tech-infused throbs of pulse."
Resonator Mag
"What if Kate Bush had shagged Marc Almond and spawned a monster that grew up listening to Violator? That's Temposhark, musically at any rate."
The Guardian
"Hipsters will be sinking their teeth into UK electronic act Temposhark. Their debut album, The Invisible Line, is due this March with notable collaborations by the crème of electronic music maven Guy Sigsworth (Madonna, Björk), singer Imogen Heap, and Sean McGhee (Frou Frou, Kate Havnevik). Fans of classic acts like Depeche Mode, New Order and Pet Shop Boys will enjoy swimming in Temposhark's similar currents, with highlights including "Joy," "Not That Big," and "It's Better To Have Loved" which enjoys Sigsworth's signature stamp."
Next Magazine (NYC)
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