Icarus
Icarus (UK) have always carved their own distinctive, eclectic path through the world of electronic music, from their sampler-based deconstructions of drum and bass in the 1990s to the continuing generative and improvised software-based genre smashing that has characterised their more recent releases. In recent years, the band has tended towards the more conceptual end of electronic music, questioning the relation between music, digital distribution and uniqueness with the Fake Fish Distribution project, which by using generative and parametric techniques provided each listener with a unique version. Their freely improvised sets present a much harsher side, relying on complex beat patterns, dense soundscapes and volume. Amid layers of battering rhythms and complexities lie occasionally recognisable instruments, albeit in strange new forms.