Boymerang was the

drum and bass Drum and bass (also written as drum & bass or drum'n'bass and commonly abbreviated as D&B, DnB, or D'n'B) is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by fast breakbeats (typically 165–185 beats per minute) with heavy bass and sub-ba ...

project of the English

post-rock Post-rock is a form of experimental rock characterized by a focus on exploring textures and timbre over traditional rock song structures, chords, or riffs. Post-rock artists are often instrumental, typically combining rock instrumentation with ...

musician

Graham Sutton Sir Oliver Graham Sutton CBE FRS (4 February 1903 – 26 May 1977) was a Welsh mathematician and meteorologist, notable particularly for theoretical work on atmospheric diffusion, boundary layer turbulence, and for his direction of the UK Mete ...

Formation

Following the release of the

Bark Psychosis Bark Psychosis are an English post-rock band/musical project from east London formed in 1986. They were one of the bands that Simon Reynolds cited when coining "post-rock" as a musical style in 1994, and are thus considered one of the key ban ...

album ''Hex'' in 1994, Sutton became interested in drum and bass. He began buying

Jungle A jungle is land covered with dense forest and tangled vegetation, usually in tropical climates. Application of the term has varied greatly during the past recent century. Etymology The word ''jungle'' originates from the Sanskrit word ''jaṅ ...

records at the Lucky Spin record shop in North London and going to Islington's Paradise Club. One of the final Bark Psychosis performances, at the 1994

Phoenix Festival The Phoenix Festival was set up by John Vincent Power of the Mean Fiddler Music Group in 1993 as an alternative to the established Glastonbury and Reading Festivals. It was held at Long Marston Airfield near Stratford-upon-Avon and was one of the ...

was Sutton and fellow band member Daniel Gish playing drum and bass. Sutton stated that he felt invigorated by the drum and bass scene after the grueling and insular band experience of ''Hex''. "I never thought I'd want to feel part of something," he said in 1996. "I've thrived on being outside anything that was happening. The whole scene is the most exciting thing that this country's seen since punk." Boymerang's self-titled debut EP, from early 1995, was the first release on the Leaf label. Sutton has said this EP was a version of the set from the Phoenix festival.Leech, Jeanette (2017) ''Fearless: The Making Of Post-Rock'', Jawbone Press.

''Balance of the Force''

Released in 1997 on the Regal label (and on the

Astralwerks Astralwerks is an American record label primarily focused on electronic music owned by Universal Music Group. Its material is distributed via Capitol Music Group in the United States. The label was founded in 1993 and, in its early years, featur ...

label in the US), the album ''Balance of the Force'' received positive reviews. ''

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born ...

'' called it "the sonic equivalent of an alert, shrewd, quick, sensitive mind". ''

Spin Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning * Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis * Spin (propaganda), an intentionally b ...

'' praised the album in an overview of the Astrelwerks label, picking it as one of the label's twenty key releases, and stating it "took drum 'n' bass to evil new extremes, wrapping pulverized breakbeats in dank, industrial drones and employing bowel-stirring bass lines to unmistakably dystopian effect."

End of project

By the close of the 1990s, Sutton was losing interest in drum and bass. "It had become this bad techno," he said in 2017, "and I just couldn't feel enthusiastic about it anymore." Contracted to

Parlophone Parlophone Records Limited (also known as Parlophone Records and Parlophone) is a German–British record label founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch of the label was founded on 8 August 192 ...

for a new Boymerang album, Sutton instead made the second Bark Psychosis record, '' Codename: Dustsucker''.

Discography

Albums

* ''Balance of the Force'' (1997)

Singles & EPs

* ''Boymerang EP'' (1995) * ''Pro-Activ EP'' (1995) * "Still" / "Urban Space" (1996) * "Soul Beat Runna" / "Mind Control" (1997)

References

English drum and bass musicians {{electronic-musician-stub