The pioneer of purple lost his way when he signed to 4AD, but now he’s back with The Mainframe, an album designed to recreate the feeling of being a synth- and car-loving 17-year-old
Liam McLean is at his home studio in Bristol, bashing out some chords. The studio is actually his mum’s spare room, but McLean – better known as Joker – has appropriated it for the purposes of music. It also works well as a place to stash his sizeable collection of synthesisers (I count seven in use, two behind the door, and three more in the corridor). His mum’s OK with it, apparently, even though her son has his own flat on the other side of the street. He’s happy, too, because his mum’s very good at dealing with the neighbours when they complain about the noise.
Anyone who has heard Joker’s music will know it’s not the soundtrack to suburban tranquility. McLean, who is 26, has been making music for more than a decade. He started off in grime, before moving into a more expansive sound that was sometimes described as dubstep but was known by aficionados as “purple”. It matched slow, lurching percussion and vivid, blaring hooks with bass that reached out from the speakers to thump you in the solar plexus. Whatever you called it, it was pretty loud.
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by Paul MacInnes via Electronic music | The Guardian
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