DOLBY ANOL - ONES TO WATCH IN 2010

One time, when I was at a house party and drunk, I pretended that I knew something about electronic music. What followed was a ten minute “conversation” (and I use that term very lightly) where I painfully tried to bluff my way through a succession of discussions about different sub-genres and upcoming artists. This self inflected torment only came to an end when the guy I was talking to wandered off, in order to tell everyone else at the party how much of a twat I was. Probably.

What’s the point of this, you might well ask? Well, despite the fact that I know nothing about electronic music I do occasionally stumble across a great act, either because they’ve remixed an indie band or because they’re a member of an indie band.

I stumbled across Dolby Anol last year for the latter reason, as one half of the DJ duo is Dananananaykroyd singer-and-drummer John Ballie Jnr (the other half is fellow Glaswegian Graham Peel). A quick listen to Dolby Anol’s myspace made it pretty clear that this was no half-arsed side project. Their glitchy electro is probably some of the most immediately accessible dance music I’ve heard, as shown in the excellent singles “Puppies” and “Tender Touch”. A delve deeper into the two-piece’s back catalogue (you can find loads over at last.fm, including some free downloads) led to the discovery of further gems “Just Julia”, “Heil Mary” and “We Don’t Rock”, to name but three.

With new material due out in the near future and some big name remixes under their belt (Kings of Leon, Gossip) 2010 looks set to be a very good year for the duo. I’ve learnt my lesson and I’m not going to pretend I know much about electronic music, but I do know that Dolby Anol are fucking awesome, so check them out.

Jed. x