Friends Electric: British Music Abroad

For:

MUSEXPO 2011

Find out more by visiting:

soundcloud.com/friendselectricmusic

Friends Electric is a band spawned not by a scene, but a burning desire to make people dance. You can hear it in the pop hooks at the heart of their songs and feel it in the slinky rhythms and euphoric beats that have begun to fill dancefloors in their native Wales.

Based in the former mining town of Neath – or about as far from the hip clubs of London as it’s possible to get without crossing water – Friends Electric are a quartet in their early 20s. Sneaking in to a Soulwax show a couple of years ago persuaded them to swap guitars for synths, move together into a terraced house and do jobs as diverse as delivering pizzas and engineering Abba Mania to fund the purchase of enough equipment to fill their front room.

Friends Electric’s infectious electronic-pop persuaded Frankmusik to snap them up for support before rising through the ranks with remixes for Kelis and Ellie Goulding. They recently headlined the BBC Introducing Stage at Radio 1’s Big Weekend, played to a packed tent at the Isle of Wight Festival, wowed the crowds at Hop Farm Festival, had their singles playlisted on XFM, and recorded live sessions for BBC Radio 1 & BBC Radio 2.