Icarus are a British band from

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, specializing in

electronic Electronic may refer to: *Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductor * ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal *Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device *Electronic co ...

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 ...

with elements of

experimental jazz Avant-garde jazz (also known as avant-jazz and experimental jazz) is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. It originated in the early 1950s and developed through to the late 1960s. Orig ...

and rich instrumentation. Formed in 1997 by cousins Ollie Bown and Sam Britton, the band's music has been described by

Kieran Hebden Kieran Hebden (born September 1977), known as Four Tet, is an English electronic musician. He came to prominence as a member of the post-rock band Fridge before establishing himself as a solo artist with charting UK albums such as '' Rounds'' ( ...

as "really beautiful and also quite kind of evil". Hebden included an Icarus track, "Benevolent Incubator", on his ''

Late Night Tales ''Late Night Tales'' and its predecessor ''Another Late Night'' are the names of two related series of artist-curated compilation albums released by Azuli Records in the UK until 2009 when the independent record label Night Time Stories took o ...

'' compilation, and Icarus also provided a remix of the Four Tet track "

My Angel Rocks Back and Forth "My Angel Rocks Back and Forth" is a song by Four Tet, released on 3 May 2004 as a 12-inch single and CD single. The title track was originally part of Four Tet's previous album, '' Rounds''. The CD edition comes with a bonus DVD of all of Fou ...

". Icarus have also remixed Murcof, Lunz, The Creatures, Spartak and Eclectic Method Featuring Chuck D. Icarus founded the independent label Not Applicable in 2002, which became a collective project with other improvising musicians. In 2008, Ollie Bown moved to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, and the band has been less active since then. Bown and Britton work in several other musical projects, but continue to produce music together as Icarus. In 2012 Icarus released an experimental "album in 1,000 variations" called ''Fake Fish Distribution'', which used parametric software techniques to allow the band to make 1,000 distinct versions of the record, with elements varying such as the rhythmic patterns of drums, effects parameters or the order of progression through the tracks. It was supported by

STEIM STEIM (STudio for Electro Instrumental Music) was a center for research and development of new musical instruments in the electronic performing arts, located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Beginning in the 1970's, STEIM became known as a pioneering cen ...

in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

and by

Ableton Ableton AG is a German music software company that produces and distributes the production and performance program Ableton Live and a collection of related instruments and sample libraries, as well as their own hardware controller Ableton Push. ...

, makers of

Ableton Live Ableton Live is a digital audio workstation for macOS and Windows developed by the German company Ableton. In contrast to many other software sequencers, Ableton Live is designed to be an instrument for live performances as well as a tool f ...

, and used the

Max for Live Max, also known as Max/MSP/Jitter, is a visual programming language for music and multimedia developed and maintained by San Francisco-based software company Cycling '74. Over its more than thirty-year history, it has been used by composers, per ...

technology to create the software. Also in 2012, they were commissioned by

Aphex Twin Richard David James (born 18 August 1971), best known as Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born British musician, composer and DJ. He is known for his idiosyncratic work in electronic music, electronic styles such as techno, ambient music, ambient, and jun ...

to build a piece of software for his Remote Orchestra project, in which he controlled a 32-piece orchestra in real time by sending frequencies to each of the players on headphones. The work was used in a one-off performance at London's

Barbican Hall The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhib ...

Discography

* ''Kamikaze'' (Hydrogen Dukebox) * ''Fijaka'' (Hydrogen Dukebox) * ''Squid Ink'' (Output) * ''Misfits'' (Not Applicable) * ''I Tweet the Birdy Electric'' (Leaf) * ''Carnivalesque'' (Not Applicable) * ''Sylt'' (Rump) * ''All Is for the Best in the Best of All Possible Worlds'' (Not Applicable) * ''Fake Fish Distribution'' (Not Applicable)

EPs

* ''Moth'' (Hydrogen Dukebox) * ''Soviet Igloo'' (Not Applicable)

References

External links

Official siteNot Applicable labelIcarus on The Leaf Label
British electronic music groups Temporary Residence Limited artists {{UK-band-stub