The bread in a Bruce sandwich
Plus DjRUM, Alabaster DePlume and more
I wasn’t initially planing to write about Bruce. I had interviewed him for the Line Noise podcast and I thought that would be that. The more I thought about it, though, the more I wanted to say something about the interview - about how fantastic it was to speak to someone so open, honest and insightful - and out came this newsletter, which you are receiving two days after the podcast itself was published.
In between these two items, Philip Sherburne published his own excellent interview with Bruce, making his newsletter the juicy filling in a Bruce-content sandwich. I am sure a lot of you read Philip’s newsletter, Futurism Restated, which has a far larger audience than my own. So maybe you don’t have time and space for another Bruce piece in your life.
That’s fair enough. But I do encourage you to read this, even if you have both listened to the Line Noise podcast and read Philip’s piece, because Bruce is just a very interesting person, with fascinating things to say. And actually, the contents of the two interviews is pretty different.
And it not, well I have some new music recommendations below and I’ll be back next week with some UK Garage.
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In any kind of sane world, Larry McCarthy would be one of the most fêted and successful producers in music. Then again, in any kind of sane world, Larry McCarthy probably wouldn’t operate under the name Bruce, a nom de plume so aggressively wrong it can only be right.
Musically, what does the name Bruce evoke for you? Bruce Springsteen and his wrinkly old stadium rock? Australians? I don’t know. But what it doesn’t tend to suggest is one of the UK’s most consistently innovative and surprising producers, a musician for whom the straightened path is like an elaborate set up for a wonky joke.
Think of tunes like 2016’s I’m Alright Mate and its accompanying B side Post Rave Wrestle; 2017’s Sweat; or The Price, a shuffling piece of glam rock electronica which is released in February on Bruce’s new Poorly Knit label. These are songs that nod to club music, only to surge off down their own erratic rabbit holes when the desire takes them; songs made up of some of the stylistic elements of house, techno and - for want of a better term - UK bass but free of their generic conventions; songs that tease, tempt and back off rather than delivering straight-forward build and release.
Bruce reminds me in many ways of French house eccentric Pepe Bradock, albeit a younger, British take on Bradock who was raised on dubstep and James Blake, rather than classic house and disco. Unlike Bradock, though, McCarthy likes to do interviews and is incredibly thoughtful and honest when he does them. When we spoke for Line Noise last week, he was very open about the response to his recent pivot into “pop” and “singing” - as he calls it - on the 2023 EPs Not and Ready and the album Not Ready For Love. (He’s certainly singing on those records; but they aren’t exactly pop music as we know it, more reminiscent of latter period Scott Walker than, say, BTS.)
Artistically, those records were a triumph. But the response from the wider world was not universally positive. McCarthy talks in the podcast interview of how some of his friends disliked his new direction. He talks, too, of how he has (sort of) given up on the pop records for now, with his new music - including the brilliant single The Price / Mimicry - exploring club sounds à la Bruce. In a world where success is everything and anything less than victory to be avoided like the plague, this is very refreshing to hear.
You can hear the full Line Noise interview here - and I recommend it thoroughly, particularly as you get to hear McCarthy’s tone. He’s amiable, laughs a lot and comes across as very warm. But I also wanted to present a few highlights from the interview in written form, for those who prefer it, starting off with where the hell he got that name.
Ben Cardew: I swear I've read a lot of your interviews but I've never seen you answer this. I'm going to go in with the most brutally basic question ever. But why the name Bruce?
Larry McCarthy: Basically, at a impressionable time of my life, somebody scared the shit out of me and made me realise that if I was going to achieve what I recently discovered at that time was suddenly achievable, I'd have to face pricks like this guy, or deal with these situations of becoming an adult. And this guy was called Bruce. So I call myself Bruce to be in remembrance of that.
BC: I wondered if you ever wanted to change it, not because I dislike the name, just that it's bizarrely hard to find and use.
LM: I had a massive opportunity to, when I started doing the singing thing. And then I did have another name lined up, which has a kind of also
tirelessly poignant personal meaning. There's no relevance to anyone else whatsoever, if anything it just causes inconvenience. But I might use it at some point.
But, to be honest, at the time when I was starting a new project, I thought I might as well see this through. It's hard. But that was more of a response for the seemingly unhealthy state of people's attention spans in comparison to when I started. And I felt that if I changed my name, I'd be having to start all over again. So at least with Bruce, I'd be able to be like, ‘Oh, people… I like Bruce.’ And there's enough people out there, just about, that when I was reaching out on a similar label, it made sense. And my partner was just like, ‘You need to keep everything under one roof. Why diversify, if you can just prove to everyone that you can do loads of stuff under the same alias?’
BC: One thing I actually quite like about the name is, if you hear it straight off, it could be anything. Some names are like, well, that's a bit jungly, or whatever. But Bruce: you could make anything.
LM: That has become more apparent as things have gone on. But for me, I think the main reason why I stick to certain things, it goes two ways. Firstly, I'm a stickler for change and I hate having to change something that works. And so, yeah, you can understand how frustrated I got when I started trying to make pop music, I realised it was a very different perspective.
But also it means a lot to me to carry on with things of great personal and emotional connection. And I think, whilst it was such a long time ago that I did meet that guy - and he was a revenue protection officer for First Great Western Trains who threatened to take me to court. It was my first term at Uni. I was just like, ‘Oh, I’ve met lots of friends at Uni, it's gonna be great.’ And this guy is threatening to take me to court, ‘Oh, my god, mommy, daddy,’ that sort of thing.
It [the name] also ties into that connection to the inner child and that sense of innocence / play that was so under threat at that moment. And I think it's important to maintain. That’s why I like the name: it could be anything but it's also kind of a bit silly, but not too silly. I can still hold on to that sense of inner child with it, a little bit. But also it could also be ‘Big Bad Bosh-y Bruce’ sort of thing. So it keeps things faithful, essentially.
BC: It's interesting you say you don’t like change, given how different some of the music you make is. Obviously there were the pop singles. But even before that, I certainly wouldn't say your music ever conformed to any kind of formula.
LM: Yeah but that's because I have kept the formula pretty simple and it was: stick to the same processes but just do what makes you happy and fun. I wouldn't have been able to articulate this back then but ultimately, as I've grown older, especially as I've come out of the singing stuff into dance music again, I've realised what it was that people connect with so much in my music: it is the sense of fun and the sense of playfulness.
That playfulness can be applied to both a jester in court, cheeky chappy, but also a: ‘I'm not willing to be held down and conform and be serious about a style.’ But the things I keep the same are essentially the process. I still use the same DAWs as I have since I was at school, when I was 17. So it goes both ways. If you keep some sort of constants and control, then the rest can be more playful, I guess, limitless.
We talk a little here about Larry’s history in making music and how he achieved his early dream of releasing a record on Hessle Audio in 2014
BC: So you fulfilled your dream quite quickly?
LM: Yes and then decided that it wasn't all it was made out to be and decided to throw it all away for singing stuff. [He laughs]. And it was like, ‘Oh, wow, this is actually completely different; something I completely needed to do.’
I assumed the singing stuff would… I don't know, I feel like I assumed that because I was… up to that point, I’d had such privilege in focusing so much on one thing and it going really well and doing it my way…. And of course, they were working within certain boundaries and limitations.
Releasing music on these labels, dance music labels before, was no mean feat. It’s something I'm so grateful for. These labels know exactly what they want and you have to work with them quite closely. And I assumed that if I carried on that mentality, any music type would be just as applicable. So I just did that with the pop music. But not without realising that it's a completely different set of rules and working within a certain way. It's not as simple as sticking to a certain framework.
It was something I needed to do, realistically, the singing stuff. So it's interesting coming back to dance music, the skintest I have ever been, and ready to embrace the world again, but realising the world is completely different from when I left it before, before COVID. The dance music world, of course.
BC: From what you you're saying, it sounds to me like you are not happy with the reception that the singing stuff, the pop music, got, right?
LM: I wouldn't go as far as that… I mean, sure there were phases of that. But right now, I realised at the time I was just a bit butt hurt and realistically that's a completely pointless emotion to have. More specifically, I thought the music was better. I genuinely just thought the music had more of an appeal. And by ‘better’, I do caveat that. I do believe in objectively good music. I just thought inherently, it was better music. And as I come out the other side of it and some time has passed, I listened back to it, and I'm like, ‘Oh yeah, no, it wasn't actually that good!’
In contrast to the stuff that I have made, in the scene it belongs in… some of my best, most loved, dance tracks … And I am gaging that entirely, just from people one-to-one being like, ‘I love this track.’ I compare that in the culture, in the world it lives in, compare it to the music, the singing stuff. And it's like that doesn’t… it's not nearly as good.
It makes me realise now that, whilst I'll never write music to make sure… I could only ever write music that I really want to write, I need to accept that the singing stuff will always be much more of a personal endeavour where I care less about - or I'm shackled less by - expectations and objectively quality standards.
I make the mistake here of calling the singing records “brave”, which makes McCarthy laugh heartily. It’s a phrase he has heard many times. I realise it’s a pretty ambiguous term and try to backtrack a little.
BC: “Brave”, is one of those words, isn't it? But I thought [the pop music] was very enjoyable, very listenable, it had good tunes. You didn't use much, if any, effects on your on your voice, right?
LM: Ah mate, it’s completely like… maybe not lots of effects but it's pitch tuned to fuck, it is very much manicured. It's made to feel like there isn't much on it, ultimately.
BC: But it's made to feel like there isn’t… Listening to it, it doesn't sound like you put your voice through a lot of things; it sounds like… that's what you sound like. I guess I've never heard your singing voice in another context. But it doesn't sound like you were trying to hide it, or anything.
LM: Not at all. It was very, very honest, the whole response. I've spoken before about [how] that whole project made me realise about honesty in music; and how much honesty can be a Marmite thing for a lot of people. I think people hear a sense of honesty in music and they steer away from it. Other people can pull towards it, like, ‘Oh my god, yes.’ It can be real deciding factor.
The whole aim of the project was to be able to write music that I could stand on stage with a backing track and sing to the best of my ability. Because I’m an idiot, I wrote ridiculously hard melodies, it was very hard to do. But the live shows I did do, the aim was just to be able to nail those songs. Just sing it…
I think the real crux of it is the fact that in those contexts, as a live musician, performing with an instrument, mine being my voice, and trying to captivate a certain emotion, a certain tone, when given the stage, literally, it is very effective. But translated into recording, it doesn't necessarily have that vibe, because it's being held against a lot of stuff in the world we're in.
You know what? I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be doing this. I shouldn't be going in and explaining my own critique of my music at this point. At the end of the day, I spent a long time thinking about it. The next album, singing album, which I finished a few months ago, putting on the back burner for a little while, is very different.
I've tried to go for a different approach but ultimately, I've tried to shape that honesty into a different way. But at the end of the day, any reception I've had from it, I've been extremely grateful for. Some of my close friends have been like, ‘I do not like this.’ And it's cool. That actually says a lot. And it's good feedback. And then I've had strangers who come to me and just like, ‘No, it's really, really special and moving.’
So ultimately, I'm so happy that I did that thing because I've learned so much from it. And it's just quite interesting how it's going to take a lot longer before I'm able to generate the same career, essentially doing something like that in that way, than I was in dance music. And it doesn't mean I'm coming back to dance music with a tail between my legs. A lot of the music I'm releasing in this new project, is dance music stuff actually written before the singing album was released. It's just the time it’s taken to come out.
BC: I think you said somewhere that the two pop EPs are about a very complex, open relationship. Was that difficult to write about?
LM: It was very much a cathartic process. Going back to the honesty thing, I was going to a lot of therapy at the time and I realised how much of… I don’t know if you've done much therapy yourself but ultimately there's a huge amount of deep digging emotionally and deconstructing these sort of processes and these sort of relationships and these situations I repeatedly would find myself in. It involved a lot of tears, the writing process. But it was a way of giving meaning to each of those kind of situationships, relationships and overall arc of love, hurt and hate. [Laughs]
But it was one that ultimately has a happy ending. It tells the story of how I eventually got with the right person and we've been partners ever since. So, once again, very personal, very honest and I'm glad. But then the next album is just as painful for a different reason but we won't talk about that yet. It’s hard. I don't really believe music should be easy, to be honest.
BC: From what you said, the singing is not finished: you've got an album coming out on which you are singing. I mean, another album on which you are singing.
LM: My plan is to tie the two together, essentially. It’s going to find the weaknesses and the strengths of each of them and bring them together. This new project that ultimately is happening this year is very much exploring dance music and there will be some singing in that. But the kind of aesthetic that carries over into [that] is much less of the cloud choir singing approach. It pulls into a much darker, slightly more dishonest, process and results in an album. But that won't be until 2026.
BC: Exploring dance music, as in different types of dance music?
LM: For me this project, starting up the new label Poorly Knit, it's more about exploring what can be done on the dance floor and the emotions that can be explored and exercised… The tracks are meant to be vessels to explore these different things, but also as in the sense of catharsis, release and letting go of emotion. It's less about styles. Once again, I'm not pinning myself down at all by style. It's more I want to create little worlds with each track that people feel like they can really get into but also make sense on a dance floor in that sort of context.
BC: The new single coming out, The Price / Mimicry, was described as a return to dance music. But if you listen to, particularly The Price, which I absolutely love, it sounds like this kind of glam rock tune, or Andy C and Shimon’s Body Rock. That sort of shuffle, it sounds nothing like what most people would would recognise as club music.
LM: Ultimately, it's going to be pushing that name or that label to the furthest extent that it can be pushed, really. That's kind of the challenge. I've sent it to some people, and they're like, ‘Oh, this is the not dance music one.’ It's like, ‘No. Try it; play it out, see what happens.’ Because I've played out a couple of times and it works, generally with stuff around 170 BPM. That swung beat is a right bastard to mix out of. But if you find the right tune, then it's definitely do-able. Ultimately I'm just trying to push these boundaries a little bit.
Listen to the Line Noise podcast for lots more of this.
Some listening
Alabaster DePlume - Oh My Actual Days
There is something pleasingly anachronistic about Oh My Actual Days - and full marks for the song title there - the new single from London-based saxophonist, singer, songwriter, orator and more Alabaster DePlume. The song’s orchestral jazz swing sounds like the kind of thing your grandparents might have had a waltz to at the end of a night in a World War 2 jazz club, with precisely the right levels of resignation, sadness and desire to carry on regardless. That makes it about perfect for January 2025, in my book, as heart-tugging surges of classical instrumentation crash into the mix, like waves upon a stormy shore.
DjRUM’s 2024 EP Meaning’s Edge was a vast step up in quality that seemed to come almost out of the blue, its sheer textural complexity a delight to the attentive listener. Expectations are high for where the UK artist might go next and A Tune For Us suggests he won’t disappoint. DjRUM - aka Felix Manuel - is a classically trained musician turned electronic wizard and the two sides of his personality combine on the track, which has a magnificent piano line, drifting like leaves on a mountain stream, the slightest edge of a break and a cello part written with Zosia Jagodzinska. Manuel says he is interested to know how people feel about the rhythm of this track “as it's not a conventional time signature”. For me, it’s magnificent, the kind of rhythm that defies convention in such a clean manner you almost don’t realise how abstruse it is.
If there’s one thing I like more than rock and electronic crossing over on a song, it is rock and electronics crossing over in new ways on a song. British duo Jadu Heart - who, from the looks of things, are one of those groups who are subtly popular on Spotify without attracting much mainstream attention - manage this on You’re Dead, a song that initially mixes shoegaze fuzz, skittish drum machine beat and nervous synth textures, before slouching off into a classic grunge chorus. Like DjRUM’s A Tune For Us, You’re Dead is covertly strange, as if such bizarre mixing comes entirely natural to Jadu Heart.
Things I’ve done
Ale Hop and Titi Bakorta - Mapambazuko
Cumbia meets soukous? Where do I sign up? This album by Peruvian musician Alejandra Cárdenas (aka Ale Hop) and Congolese guitarist Titi Bakorta is a total joy and I don’t think I had ever heard anything quite like it. Anyway, I reviewed it for Pitchfork. “Wile E. Coyote stops and looks at the camera, a resigned expression on his face. For an agonising second his feet scramble to gain purchase on solid air, the cliff edge now meters behind him. Then he plunges to his (temporary) doom. Unlikely as it may seem, this moment of comically absurd cartoon drama is precisely what Mapambazuko, a collaboration between Peruvian musician Alejandra Cárdenas (aka Ale Hop) and Congolese guitarist Titi Bakorta, sounds like: outlandish, frantic, bounding with color, and pushing at the edges of possibility.”
This week, ML Buch plays live in Barcelona and Madrid. I interviewed her about eight months ago for Line Noise and, to celebrate the fact that she’s coming back, the nice technicians at Radio Primavera Sound gave the interview a bit of a sonic polish, so it is sounding clear as day. Do give it a listen.
The playlists
Christ alive 2025 has got off to a bad start politically. Musically? It’s cranking up and my best new music of 2025 playlist is sputtering into life. Why not follow it? And if that’s not enough, you have my very, very long playlist of the best new (well, it was new at the time) music from the last five years.
Great interview -- I mean, and this is not a knock on you OR me, but Bruce makes any interview great pretty much automatically! And I'm so glad you asked him where the alias comes from! Of course there's a great story to go with it.