Color 8.3 Buy This Issue Now

Michael Barrow touches base with three different producers based in three different countries who are all making dance music for one.

SAMPLE:
Despite living thousands of miles apart and having virtually no connection with each other, Mock & Toof, Babe Rainbow, and Phaseone are united in a couple of areas: each of them has released an excellent, emotive debut album in the last year, and, despite their diverse styles, they all make dance music that’s profoundly antisocial. Mock & Toof’s debut LP, Tuning Echoes, is a quiet, quirky and sometimes sad take on nu-disco; Phaseone’s rap-inspired synth beats make you feel like you’re staring out into the night from an airplane window, no matter where you are; and Babe Rainbow’s Shaved EP, which was immediately snatched up by Warp Records, is an eerie slab of ambient horror-step. Redolent of hours alone in their individual bedrooms, all three take styles of music invented for the dancefloor and twist them into something interior: a space for one. Call it a clubhouse for outsiders.