‘Supergroups’ are synonymous with bearded men of a certain age coming together to make music that isn’t quite as good as the stuff that made them famous in the first place, but now electronic music luminaries Look Mum No Computer (Sam Battle), Cuckoo (Andreas Paleologos) and Hainbach are here to at least partially redefine the concept.
The beards are still still here (in the cases of Cuckoo and Hainbach, at least) but Uncompressed, as the trio is called - the name is derived from the fact that it’s three people who are famous for their YouTube videos stepping out into the real world - are most definitely not the Traveling Wilburys. They were invited to come together by Patreon, and will be performing in public for the first time at Barcelona’s Sónar festival in June.
In the video above, you can see the slightly ramshackle collective assembling for the first time at Battle’s This Museum is Not Obsolete in Ramsgate, UK. Cuckoo gets to try LMNC’s 1,000-oscillator, wall-mounted Mega Drone (“I’m trying to build a 10,000 one next”, he says) while Hainbach seems to be sampling everything he hears.
Battle, meanwhile - who seems to get around Ramsgate on a Sinclair C5 - decides at one point to pull out an old Roland CR-78 analogue rhythm machine, declaring that “This is our Lars Ulrich. It’s going to be more in time, though”.
Of course, some supergroup traditions remain - when Cuckoo whips out his OP-1 he says he’s going to use it for his inevitable solo. “You’re already planning for your solo, huh?” enquiries Hainbach. Well, of course.
You can see more of Uncompressed’s first jam on the three members’ respective Patreon channels. Sónar takes place in Barcelona from 16 to 18 June.
