Renfro

POPS, CLICKS & MELTED CIRCUITS Renfro are Atom and Tim. Tim sings the songs and Atom finds sounds. Together they manipulate brightly coloured samplers and also write words. This seems to work well. Renfro like the avant-garde, but often find themselves wanting to sing along too. They enjoy Low and Phoenix as much as they do Tod Dockstader and Christian Fennesz, so their idea is to meld experimental musical techniques with dream-pop songwriting.

Renfro are Atom and Tim. Tim sings the songs and Atom finds sounds. Together they manipulate brightly coloured samplers and also write words. This seems to work well.

Renfro like the avant-garde, but often find themselves wanting to sing along too. They enjoy Low and Phoenix as much as they do Tod Dockstader and Christian Fennesz, so their idea is to meld experimental musical techniques with dream-pop songwriting.

Renfro are based in Devon & East London, UK. They make music from electronic fragments. They formed in late 2005, born from a mutual love of the electronic music - Lali Puna, Oval, Matmos, Jan Jelinek, Paul Wirkus - as well as the voices of Robert Wyatt, Green Gartside, Solveig Slettehjell and Nina Persson.

Very soon afterwards, whilst waving field microphones at elephant seals in Santa Cruz, Ca., they wondered why pop music couldn't be made using a soundtrack of field recordings and electro-acoustic manipulations. Those same elephant seals ended up joining a sonic cast that includes malfunctioning leads, rustling trees, tapped teeth, satellite signals, distortion bursts, and burning plastic (a credit card sacrifice).

The end results see lushly layered vocals residing amongst twinkling tunes that float on a sea of pops, clicks and melted circuits. A kind of electronic-alternative-gospel-folk for the 21st Century. Sometimes it's melancholy, and sometimes it chuckles quietly in the corner.

Words are important to renfro, and they try to remain optimistic in the face of the political and social realities of modern life. Modernity is a tough gig, after all. Renfro like to explore the poetics of isolation, difference and collapse. For guidance they binge on film, literature and assorted junk culture.

Renfro want to make music that embraces the future, rather than bathing in nostalgia for a retro-electro past. They believe you can, and should, make pop songs from the sound of technology breaking down.