aaamusic | On 13, Feb 2012

Mr Fogg is not one to take things easy.

 

His debut album ‘Moving Parts’ saw him shooting a self-directed video live in Trafalgar Square, performing on the hour every hour for 4 days in his pop-up Fogg Shop, and springing a full marching band on audiences at Reading and Leeds festivals.

 

So, when he sat down in January 2011 to write the music that would make up his second long-player, Fogg set himself the target of writing and recording 20 new songs in 5 months.

 

“I made a decision to try and disregard what had come before – to start again from scratch as far as possible. I felt that if something new and different was going to come out of the same brain then there had to be a change in approach.”

 

This new approach saw field recordings of improvised rhythms, melodies and lyrics reconstructed and brought to life in Fogg’s Oxford studio, before the finishing touches were added during 3 trips to Valgeir Sigurdsson’s (Bjork, Feist, mum, Maps, Bonnie Prince Billy) Greenhouse Studios in Reykjavik. Stay Out Of The Sun, the first fruit of these sessions, sees Mr Fogg in frankly sinister mode, taking us from the almost-whispered opening to distorted, clattering drums – and back again – inside 3-and-a-half minutes. Meanwhile, the juxtaposition of jittery, awkward (and some times brutal) electronics with acoustic piano and the artist’s distinctive, emotive voice, ensures that this is electronic music with a human, beating heart.

 

London date: 28th February: Upstairs at The Garage