Ex- Simian man and Black Ghosts singer Simon Lord releases a new solo album on June 9th under the name Lord Skywave. The album takes the same name, and blends influences as diverse as Jamie Lidell, Brian Wilson, Prince and Serge Gainsbourg to create a leftfield, song-based electronica vibe.
The name, and all the electronic and bass sounds on the album, come from the Lord Skywave synthesizer built by Simon's dad in the '70s- he only built 10 of them and Simon is the proud owner of one. His musical ancestry continues with 4 tracks on the album containing sections of Lord's grandmother, Madeleine Dring's (1923-1977) music. It was always at the back of his mind to try using some of her music in his own recordings, and a couple of summers ago Lord spent some time at his grandad's house going through his collection of old reel-to-reel tape recordings and '78s of Madeleine's music, and converted them onto CD as an archive. She was influenced by such impressionist composers as Debussy and Poulenc, the first of their time to explore atonal harmonies and dissonance.
There's R'n'B and dubstep thrown into the mix too, and with his powerful voice guiding the whole thing, it's bound to be a corker.
Check out some of his finest moments thus far here: