Bicep talk new single ‘Water’ and share what’s next: “We want to spend a few years experimenting”

nme.com:

Bicep have released their magnetic new single ‘Water’ featuring Clara La San. Check it out below alongside an interview with the electronic music duo.The propulsive track arrives with B-side ‘Waterfall’ – an earlier, instrumental version of ‘Water’ – marking Bicep’s first brand new music since their 2021 album ‘Isles’.The Belfast-born, London-based duo – Andrew Ferguson and Matthew McBriar – told NME how the tracks were created during a studio jam session when they were writing new music for this summer’s live shows. “Whatever we demo with, is almost never what we finish with,” McBriar said.The process saw them experimenting with an instrument called the MEGAfm – a new synth which uses chips that formed the sounds of the SEGA Megadrive/Genesis games consoles.They then sent the demo of the track to La San, who worked with Bicep on ‘Isles’. “We’d asked for some little bits of vocals rather than feature vocals.

And Clara just came ahead with a full feature,” McBriar said. “So we stripped it all out and then decided we would rebuild a new song around Clara’s vocal using part of the original track from us.

So it’s kind of this hybrid on a hybrid on a hybrid.”Elaborating on their creative relationship with La San, who features on ‘Isles’ tracks ‘Saku’ and ‘X’, Bicep explained that the Manchester singer-songwriter brought a blend of various influences to their tracks including trance, R&B and garage.“I just feel like Clara nails a little bit of every single one of them without being too much.

She’s not too sugary, she’s not too lamenting, it’s sort of everything in between,” McBriar said.“Clara’s a machine, she’s honestly insane.