Boolean Who? by Gallops

Wrexham trio Gallops return with 'Boolean Who?' the potent first outing from a series of singles charting the trio's further pivot towards electronica and their elevation of technology from tool to creative collaborator.

Five years on from their acclaimed 2017 Bronze Mystic album, 'Boolean Who?' is a vigorous, warehouse-juddering slab of insistent drum machine workouts, cascading figures, vocal fragments and blooming synths.

Named after George Boole, the 19th century mathematician whose logic system underpins modern programming, the richly-rendered track functions as consciousness capture, a VR sci-fi story told through sound; music for uncertain futures which still hold the potential for adventure and catharsis, despite everything. Evoking cavernous earthly spaces and interstellar expanse, 'Boolean Who?' is the first of a clutch of tracks aimed directly at the darkened dancefloor.

“These tracks are also about stripping back our sound and creating something that feels more direct and visceral,” says Mark Huckridge. “We've always been interested in club culture and this is us letting that shine through, working less with melody and focusing more on rhythmic elements and how they interact with each other, as well as not being afraid to let things repeat.”

Now an entirely independent unit, this post-pandemic Gallops variant counts the same personnel as that behind Bronze Mystic: Huckridge, Brad Whyte and Liam Edwards with mixing by front-of-house engineer Sebastien Allemand. Rather than trail a forthcoming album, 'Boolean Who?' sees Gallops step further from rockist traditions by releasing the series as club-ready singles and embracing the role of technology as a generative decision-maker in the composition process.

The series features the results of collaborative work with machine-learning research project Magenta, randomisation and chance operations, as well as the use of experimental studio techniques influenced by the likes of dub innovator King Tubby, pioneer of the mixing-desk-as-instrument.

Ideas aside from the purely musical have also stretched and reshaped the band, from the esoteric discussions of favoured lockdown podcast Weird Studies, Ken Hollings' writings on humanity and machines, and a resolution to take Gallops towards a DIY approach.

“As well as making things a lot easier for us practically, releasing our own stuff has been really liberating,” says Huckridge, “and it's come as big part of lockdown being a reflection on different ways of doing things. So whereas I'd always been most comfortable with composing with guitars, I found that this sense of comfort – of muscle memory – had been working against me. Muscle memory is not an issue with technology, it doesn't have influences or an ego. So whilst technology has always been a big part of Gallops and the creative process, this time around machines have very much been collaborators as well as sound-making tools. I'm interested in that push and pull battle with machines in the creative process. They produce variations which sound a bit skewed, a bit inhuman, and that's exciting for me in terms of composing.”

Mark Huckridge explains: “The video was created by the London-based filmmaker Sky Ainsbury. It uses macro footage of ink
and its colour data to create hallucinatory digital landscapes. This clash between the real and hyperreal, utilising organic input
in order to receive synthetic output is a reflection of the band's current modus operandi”

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