Barry Can’t Swim - Loner

Following up a Mercury Prize-shortlisted debut album in two years, as Barry Can’t Swim - aka Joshua Mainnie - has done with ‘When Will We Land?’ successor ‘Loner’, is no small feat. But with his second, the Edinburgh producer has at least triumphed on a human level, the record sparking emotional response as much as offering dancefloor escapism. Sitting roughly between peers Jamie XX - with whom he shares an affinity for cut-and-paste production, marrying glitchy sounds with analogue euphoria (see the vocals cutting in and out of ‘Different’, and the rapturous brass of ‘Childhood’ as cases in point) - and Fred again.. in taking lush, rich dancefloor sounds to mass audiences, ‘Loner’ both satiates that audience’s hunger for communally-experienced bangers, and delivers a collection of songs that require neither nightlife nor crowds to be explored. Opener ‘The Person You’d Like To Be’, with its spoken-word affinity to Baz Luhrmann’s 1997 ‘Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)’ (“Don’t look into someone’s eyes if you love them for too long / They will see you as you are”) and baggy beat stands closer to Fontaines DC’s ‘Romance’ era than anything else, while both ‘Like It’s Part Of The Dance’ and closer ‘Wandering Mt. Moon’ offer a warmth through their more subtle take on euphoria. That said, it’s ‘About To Begin’ which is the clear standout here, its impeccable ebb and flow suggesting more than a handful of pints-in-the-air festival moments, and its deeper, squelchy sound and earwormy chorus echoing the creators of some of the most accomplished of epic dance moments, The Chemical Brothers. In all, ‘Loner’ is a worthy follow-up to his debut that’s suited to soundtrack dancefloors to come - and more crucially, other places too.