Premiere: Mr. Bill and Laura Brehm unite for a glitchy collab, i2i

With a combined skillset spanning some of electronic's most influential labels, their brilliant new collab is worth listening to.

Tweet
Copy Link

With the Australian electronic scene being as consistently brilliant as it is, it's often easy to forget what's happening in the international markets - including Australian acts that have seemingly skipped over that traditional, triple j break-out route to find immediate success in international waters. Take Mr. Bill, for example. Over the last few years, the Sydney-raised producer has shared tracks on some of dance music's most influential labels - deadmau5’ mau5trap label for example, while also collaborating with the electronic heavyweight on his 10.8 - and even scored the Nicolas Cage horror-comedy Mom And Dad, building a cult-like audience predominately built in the US market, rather than the Australian dance music scene where he was initially placed amongst. It's not too hard to understand why, either. Through album after album; single after single; Mr. Bill has deepened this glitchy and warping iDM sound that doesn't really sound like much else happening in the country at the moment, something which really feels evident on his latest collaboration, i2i.

Written alongside Laura Brehm, who over the years has become one of electronic's go-to singer-songwriters through her own work and collaborations with boundary-pushing names including WRLD, i2i specifically being elevated onto a new level thanks to her rich, swooning vocal. Production-wise, i2i is a track that sits in a more subtle lane and that's okay. Allowing Brehm's vocal to take the spotlight, Mr Bill creates a sprawling, warping production thickly-layered with glitching synth textures and sparse percussion, taking things down a more experimental route as if he combines the distinct sounds of Four Tet and Eprom (as an example). "The amount of detail in this track for a vocal-driven tune is something pretty new to me. Getting all the parts to work with one-another was super challenging. I'm really glad I went down this path with Laura, it was a great learning experience & I really like the end result" says Mr. Bill on the track, referencing the many layers within, before Laura further explains: "loved writing and singing a song that is much more IDM, experimental, and progressive compared to my previous collaborative releases. I’ve always admired Mr. Bill’s production and being able to blend our styles together was an interesting process."

As the two sides of this collaboration strive towards a big second half of 2019, dive into i2i below before its official arrival tomorrow - it's a real treat. Pre-save the track HERE.