Anchorsong: Love From London

Anchorsong hails from Tokyo, Japan and has been living in the UK for four years now. He’s recently signed a deal with Brighton’s Tru Thoughts label.

Plum Rain by Anchorsong

Part of the new generation of live beat makers, Anchorsong creates his music completely live using an Akai MPC controller along with a Korg digital synthesizer to craft music in front of his audience. It’s almost like watching a painter drawing on a blank canvas.

Growing up, he played guitar in a few different bands but decided to go it alone as his love of technology developed. Anchorsong’s music is not short of musicianship and instrumentation, his musical training shines though in his work.

Playing in drum beats riffs and sounds, Anchorsong carefully builds his tracks leaving very little space for error — he’s basically playing all the elements of a band himself. While he usually plays solo, when budgets allow, he has been known to include a string quartet, which clearly adds an extra layer to the show

After building up a solid fanbase, he played at SXSW in 2009. Since then, the level of attention has reached new heights thanks to support in the UK on BBC Radio 1. His debut EP was released in March and his much-awaited debut album, which will be called Chapters, is due out in November,

— Alex Kenning

(Love From London is an ongoing series where correspondents Alex Kenning and Izzy Lawrence introduce us to bands generating excitement across the pond.)