Barry Can't Swim is a brand new dance music famous person

Scottish producer Barry Cant Swim is one among dance music's new superstars, together with his colourful and eccentric dance strikes wowing packed crowds from Glastonbury to Coachella and incomes a Brit Award and Mercury Prize nominations in 2024.

Now, he's kicked off the brand new yr with one other accolade, after coming third on the BBC's Sound of 2025 record.

It confirms her as one among pop's breakout names, after 5 years of a gentle upward pattern, gaining extra followers, publicity and reward with every launch.

When Barry Can't Swim launched his debut single in December 2019, it was the newest in a collection of initiatives from Edinburgh-born musician Joshua Maini.

He didn’t know that it was he who would fly. If he had, maybe he would have thought just a little extra deeply concerning the identify.

“I've just got a mate called Barry and he can't swim,” he instructed BBC Radio 6 Music in 2023.

“And once I picked the identify, I actually didn't anticipate that it was going to be my full profession and that everybody was going to suppose my identify was Barry.

“Really didn't think any more about it than that. And now I'm stuck in it.”

Barry/Joshua has his eagle-eyed, cash-conscious grandfather to thank for setting him on the trail to a music profession.

“I started playing piano when I was about 10,” he instructed BBC Radio 1's Jack Saunders in an interview, explaining his place on the Sound of List.

“My grandfather actually saw an ad in a newspaper for a piano that was available for free, and he picked it up and dropped it off at my mom and dad, and they said 'We don't have room for it. '.

“And that's all. I've simply began studying the right way to play.”

Having become addicted to music, he formed bands in his teens inspired by groups such as Happy Mondays and the Stone Roses, who mixed indie and dance in the Madchester scene of the late 1980s and early 90s.

“They have been a number of the first individuals who actually tried to create a fusion of the music that I cherished, which was '60s psychedelic rock and extra trendy digital music”, he says.

“And that's what I was trying to do – incorporate the more traditional form of songwriting and melody of '60s music with electronic production.

“Well, it feels quite a bit higher than earlier than. But that's what I used to be making an attempt to do, a minimum of for some time.”

Manny decided to dedicate himself to dance music after discovering the nightclubs around Edinburgh's Cowgate as a student while studying music at Edinburgh Napier University.

“My early formation actually got here from clubbing, and going out, and falling in love with dance music that approach. So it was a pure development from bands to digital music.”

Barry Can't Swim's sound is bright, euphoric and highly danceable, combining hazy house rhythms, trance piano and infectious vocal snippets into songs that are intoxicating shots of sonic sunshine.

Their debut album When Will We Land? It contains exotic-sounding samples of Galician folk and Brazilian funk, as well as a recording of his friend Jack Loughrey, aka Somedeadbeat, reading a poem at 4 in the morning.

It was one of 12 albums shortlisted for the prestigious Mercury Prize, and Manny was nominated for Best Dance Act at the 2024 Brit Awards.

Live, her sound is augmented by a drummer, a second synth player and guest singers, while 32-year-old Manny dances behind her keyboard in a colorful shirt – occasionally emerging from the front of the stage to throw figures.

They attracted massive crowds to Glastonbury's Park Stage last summer, sold out three nights at Brixton Academy in November, and will host a night at the All Points East festival in East London in August.

He also does DJ sets – but says he gets “bothered” when people just call him a DJ.

“I've been enjoying devices for many years and was constructing for 5 years earlier than touching a set of decks,” he instructed Rolling Stone,

Now, both sides of their live performances feed off each other, he told Radio 1's Saunders.

“When I DJ a lot, I miss playing live a lot. And when I play live, I miss DJing a lot.

“Weirdly, it reverses what I'm writing. Like, once I spend numerous time enjoying dwell with a band, I cease writing membership music as a result of I crave it.

“And then the other – once I DJ, I miss the extra dwell components of creating music.

“So I really feel like I’ve a ardour for each equally and mutually, and I feel that's why it's been really easy to transition from DJ-ing – not only a band, however who I’m. The music I make lends itself properly to dwell efficiency of digital music. It nonetheless has the fundamental rules of conventional songwriting, however with digital manufacturing.”

Barry Can't Swim is part of a new wave of feelgood dance music heroes, intelligently joining Sound of 2023 runner-up Fred Again, Sound of 2024 listee Peggy Gow and Sound of 2025 nominee Confidence Man.

Manny says that “extra leftist” electronic music like his “positively feels prefer it's received an even bigger viewers than ever earlier than”.

“I don't actually know what's occurred through the years, however the music I used to be listening to, and a number of the artists I used to be listening to some years in the past once I was going out clubbing, have been fairly area of interest – now they' You're virtually a pop star.

“And you're like, what happened? But it's amazing. It's such an amazing thing to see.”

Almost pop star?

If Barry/Joshua hasn't reached that time but, he positively will in 2025.

One of the highest 5 acts of BBC Sound of 2025 can be introduced every day this week on Radio 1 and BBC News, culminating with the winner on Friday.