ED KENT
With more than a decade of experience already under his belt, 22 year old DJ & Producer Ed Kent has been steadily cutting his teeth across both his home country of Australia and beyond. An exceptionally measured and deep-digging selector, Ed pushes an uncomprimising approach to the craft which has seen him grace the booth at a number of institutions across the globe, including Manchester’s revered Warehouse Project and Berlin’s RSO. Countless shades of House, Techno, Dub, Jungle and everything in between sit comfortably within his record bag at all times; a range which is seldom seen in even the most accomplished of artists’ arsenals. Ed’s musical contributions also extend beyond the dancefloor, whether it be through his limited tape-based label Sleeper Tape or his radio appearances across platforms such as London’s NTS Radio.
Swimmer’s sun-drenched, tropical aesthetic led to Arbes being labelled as purveyors of the beach-pop sub-genre, with American fans describing the release as the perfect soundtrack for summer in California. The EP contains ‘Key Largo’, their biggest single to date with over 894k streams on Spotify alone. But Arbes have always possessed something grittier, wilder, and of expansive emotional depth, that has only become more apparent with time. The NME perceived this quality in 2015 when likening Jess Zanoni’s vocals to Elizabeth Fraser from Cocteau Twins.
Their 2016 EP Psalms harnessed more detailed sonic experimentation. The EP expanded the band’s fanbase, appealing to their listeners' sensibility for soothing, warm soundscapes. ‘Sintra’ has proved to be a standout track from the release, with 214k+ streams on Spotify to date.
In 2023, Arbes have stepped into their power as a four-piece. Their forthcoming debut album invites listeners into an unusual sonic world of atmospheric depth . Comparisons can be drawn to New York post-punk of a more colourful bent, running Blondie all the way through to Gang Gang Dance. Most prominent is the sense of something blissfully airborne tugged gently to the earth; that is Arbes’ own region. There’s a gripping struggle between pop discipline and something otherworldly. It’s a record where the mythical and the urban converge: dense, ghostly reverberation meets the functional whirring of a city. This is a subtly forward-facing pop album, for its shape, its textures, its mood, but especially for its way of quietly inserting complications.