Releases by makeness

Makeness is the solo project of Scottish electronic artist & multi-instrumentalist Kyle Molleson. Molleson was born in the Outer Hebrides, Scottish Highlands, where he spent the first few years of his life, surrounded by Highlands folk music and his dad’s bagpipe bands. Molleson then moved to Dorset, Southwest England for the majority of his childhood. It was there that Molleson started a band with some school friends, which — with a manager and recording sessions in London under their belt — made it halfway to recording an album. But it was in Leeds where Molleson made his most important connections. Moving there for university, his school friend and regular collaborator Tom Howe had also moved to nearby York. Finding himself in a flat with Harry Burgess, he was the link between that pair — making a connection that would soon become Adult Jazz. Meanwhile, he helped to form Glad Hand (then-called Fun Adults) with friends-of-friends drawn from the same circle. At this point, Molleson's interests in guitar and folk music started to expand outward. He discovered the music of Caribou, whose 2013 ‘Swim’ charted a trajectory similar to the one he was following; the sweet spot it found — between left-of-centre pop and club-minded music — struck a chord with the different spheres Molleson was increasingly drawn to himself. At the same time, Flying Lotus’ output was another big eye-opener; his music, as well as Teebs and other signees to the Brainfeeder stable, pointed to psychedelic, unconventional possibilities for building rhythms. Cosmic Slop, an underground institution in Leeds, was another touchstone. Based on the fringe of the city centre, it’s a community-oriented party that was started to raise money for their education charity. It boasts a hand-built, peerless sound system, a near-pitch black dance floor and a music policy that ranges from Dilla instrumentals to Detroit house. Molleson recalls, “That place was definitely an awakening in terms of dance music.” The student enclaves of Headingley and Hyde Park, where Molleson and almost all his friends were based, was an area that lent itself to being creative. Populated by never-ending terraces of cheap student houses, the close-quarters living made for easy-going connections and rehearsals. Plus, the house parties that constantly took place — in the area’s plentiful supply of scuzzy basements — meant opportunities to playing for rowdy, appreciative crowds. Each summer, Molleson would return to the Outer Hebrides with his extended band mates in tow. His dad built his own studio there, so they would make the journey to all spend a couple of weeks writing and recording. It became an important hub, with both Adult Jazz and Glad Hand releasing debut albums from sessions that took place there. Having moved to London in 2015, which is when he started working on his solo material, the studio still remains an important finishing-stop for his music. He returned to the Highlands to put the finishing touches to Loud Patterns. Putting the album through the studio’s mixing desk, he also spent time tinkering with the finer details. “They’ve just got lots of old, broken bits of gear,” he says. “At one point, we had two car batteries and we were holding it up to get the spring reverb to work.” Makeness' in-between approach to dance-minded music can be seen from his discography span. His first two EPs were released on Manchester-based imprint Handsome Dad, followed by a one-off single with Adult Jazz, the self-released Temple Works EP, and then a limited-edition white label for Nic Tasker’s much-feted Whities imprint. After this came Loud Patterns, released in 2018 on Secretly Canadian, where it gained notoriety, including features on Spotify's most prominent electronic playlists such as Lava Lamp. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.