Isles

The emotional trick at the centre of Isles is that its biggest moments can feel euphoric and homesick at once. Belfast-born duo Andrew Ferguson and Matthew McBriar had already built a reputation around club music with a strong sense of memory, but their second Bicep album widened that instinct into something more expansive. Released in January 2021 after two years of work, Isles arrived at a moment when dancefloors were largely inaccessible, which made its mixture of propulsion, distance and yearning feel unusually apt even though the music had been developed long before that context settled around it.

Bicep’s method is often most interesting when control slips slightly. “Sundial” began with a fault in a Jupiter-6 synthesiser: its arpeggiator started skipping notes, and rather than correcting the machine, the duo built chords around the accident. That willingness to treat imperfection as composition runs through the record. “Atlas” opens the album with a rolling, physical momentum, while “Apricots” folds vocal fragments into a track that feels simultaneously communal and private. “Saku”, featuring Clara La San, brings an unmistakably human presence into the electronics without softening their edges.

There is considerable range beneath the album’s surface unity. Strings appear on “Rever”, which features Julia Kent, while tracks such as “Cazenove” and “Lido” favour rhythm, repetition and atmosphere over the obvious release of a conventional dance single. The result is club music that rarely behaves as though the club is the only possible destination. Bicep have spoken about the multicultural environment of London as part of the record’s background, and Isles reflects that openness through texture rather than through a neat list of influences.

The album reached number two on the UK Albums Chart and was nominated for the Choice Music Prize, but its appeal is less about scale than emotional precision. Bicep understand that dance music can hold contradictory feelings without explaining them. A kick drum can be reassuring and melancholy; a chopped voice can feel intimate without saying anything legible. Isles is full of those small tensions. Listen for the moments when a loop changes almost imperceptibly, or when a melody appears to surface from somewhere behind the rhythm. That is where its pull becomes strongest.