Written by: Oliver Heffron
Multifaceted non-binary artist BIIANCO bridges a gap between London club music and the underground LA dance scene, breathing new life into America’s monotonous, big-room-house-dominated electronic landscape through UK bass, multi-instrumental mastery, and throwback breakbeats. “I like to listen to music when I’m sad” embodies this intoxicating, retro dance sound with vibrating synths and tactile percussion.
The track’s live music video displays an effortless mastery over a band’s worth of instruments as BIIANCO sings, plays synth keys, plucks basslines, and drums stick into sample pads all over the space of one track. On their new single, “Been Right Here,” BIIANCO teams up with producer Carly Wilford and singer Lea Lea to create an uplifting, gospel-dance anthem.
Photo Courtesy of Fred Perry
While preparing for their set at the upcoming OUTLOUD Music Festival at WeHo Pride, BIIANCO sat down with NUANCE for a virtual interview to talk about their musical upbringing, diverse influences, and vision for a UK-inspired renaissance in American dance music:
Raised in a musical household, BIIANCO’s passion for music started early and grew with each instrument and technique. (“My childhood,” BIIANCO explains, “it was lots of music.”) Starting with classical piano at five, BIIANCO moved on to guitar, singing, jazz, and drums by middle and high school, when they also first started producing on Garageband after forcing their parents to buy a Macbook for beats. Eventually locking in on singing, drums, production, and bass guitar, BIIANCO’s passion for different types of music manifests in the variety of their growing discography.
Growing up mainly in a small Connecticut town, BIIANCO remembers growing up both sheltered by small-town suburban life while attracted to the alluring music and culture of the city only a train ride away: “As soon as we hit high school, everybody just takes the train into the city every weekend kind of thing. So it was interesting, it was like an incubator, but I was still exposed to everything musically that was happening in New York at the time.”
Describing themselves as a “weird kid” when it came to music taste, BIIANCO grew up listening to eclectic groups like Portishead and Radiohead but remembers their first and most influential inspiration always being singer Tori Amos: “I think it partially had to do with the classical piano background that we both had and how that could be interpreted in an alternative rock perspective, but Tories like late 90s stuff early 2000s stuff really took a ravey turn, like on “Raspberry Swirl” when she really started experimenting with electronic production.” In addition, BIIANCO cites Mark Knight as a significant influence for DJing while drawing multi-instrumental inspiration from artists like The Chemical Brothers and The Crystal Method.
After starting their career and living in LA for years, BIIANCO moved to London part-time to be closer to the UK bass sound and club scene. “Honestly, my music is so London. That was the kind of music I loved. That was the kind of music I leaned into.” Since the move, BIIANCO’s been carving out a place in the city’s vibrant dance scene and starting to see results, even getting love from the BBC with their own Intro Mix:
Photo Courtesy of Fred Perry
“Ever since my move there in 2021 Like every morning I listened to BBC 6 music, I’ve followed the DJs on Radio 1 Dance like Jaguar and Jane Iszatt for years now, so it’s been a dream come true to suddenly be on their radar. Not only that but getting Dance Floor moment of the week from Jaguar, or the Intro Mix with Jess, it’s a dream come true to get to do those things because I’ve been following them as an aspiring fan for so many years. So it really honestly makes me feel like I gotta keep going.”
BIIANCO also sees the recent recognition as an opportunity to bring back the sound they love to their part-time home in the States, finding an outlet in the underground LA dance scene:
“I also feel really motivated to bring that sound back to America. I know that there’s other people doing that sound, but in America but we have a dance music scene that’s really dominated by Big Room House and it’s just not something that connects with the rest of the world…like progressive house and tech house is not something that like really makes sense in Europe. So I really want to keep helping to bring this sound and develop it a little bit more in America. In the LA scene and we have a really booming underground right now that really embraces that sound too. So it’s kind of seeing the success in London and then the UK is really motivating me to keep trying to carve it in both places as well.”
Working consistently as a DJ for years, BIIANCO drew inspiration from the sounds they found were missing from their CDJ, explaining how this process started with “I like to listen to music when I’m sad.”
“That track came together and was inspired by something that I kept looking for for my DJ sets that was just missing. So I just made the song that I wanted. My sets tend to lean on four on the floor like a lot of people that are a bit ravier with their DJ sets but I really wanted a reprieve from that to lean into a breakbeat at some point with really Acid House undertones…
“I basically just kept hearing the song in my set that was missing. I was mining all these tracks and didn’t find the right fit, so then I just made the track. It kind of actually sparked a switch in my mindset. As I had started DJing I kept looking for tracks and then, after that, I switched from looking for tracks to looking to make the tracks that are missing in my sets.”
Displaying their impressive live performance process, the tracks’ Music Video shows off BIIANCO’s exceptional multi-instrumental ability, recreating the track section-by-section with no backing track: “What you saw in that music video is actually what my live set is like. If I’m just playing totally live, no CDJs, nothing, I tend to rely on my Roland Drum Machine to load the stems in and be able to trigger them, and that with a combination of Ableton, live keys, live drum pads, and live bass–that’s my live show.”
Besides the Roland Drum Machine, BIIANCO flanks themselves on stage with a chosen array of instruments and equipment, including the Prophet Six synthesizer, bass guitar, and SPD-SX drum pads–the ladder of which they explain has been them since the origins of the sound: “That SPD-SX has been with me since like Bianco originated in the very first Bianco show I played to drum pads and so I really think that that has become synonymous with me as an artist and how I think about performance.” While their shows are played live, BIIANCO also plays Hybrid DJ sets in which both CDJs and live instruments are utilized.
Photo Courtesy of Fred Perry
While infectious club beats are their forte, BIIANCO’s recent slew of releases displays a diverse array of sonic approaches in one sound. Their new single, “Get Right,” sees the DJ/singer team up with Bristolian vocalist Dread MC for an upbeat hip-hop/dance banger, while the collaboration with Maiah Manser, “Money Power Freedom (and a lover),” presents an empowering deep house vibe. On the hit single “Close to Love” featuring sad alex, BIIANCO’s instruments take a back seat to a soothing vocal track, constructing a more traditional melody to emphasize its lyrics. Comparing “I like to listen to music when I’m sad” to “Close to Love,” BIIANCO describes the two tracks embodying two differing approaches to creating songs: affecting the listener with feelings or thoughts:
“That song [“Close to Love”] was produced in that sort of traditional producer way, where you had like a couple of really strong ideas, and then you built the lyrics, and you build the vocals around it... Whereas ‘I like to listen to music when I’m sad’ was pure performance, like that song exists to be performed–even by listeners. I feel like the people in the audience who listen to that song are performing in some way when they listen to it, whether it’s like driving on the highway or like it feels like a soundtrack to whatever they’re doing… I feel like a standalone song that sounds like ‘Close to Love’ it’s about people connecting with the words, whereas I feel like people listening to “I like to listen to music when I’m sad” it’s like connecting with a feeling like a vibe you know, like a movement.”
On their most recent single, “Been Right Here,” which BIIANCO calls “the house music song of the summer,” they collaborated with Carly Wilford and vocalist Li Li to create a nostalgic dance/gospel anthem by challenging themselves in the recording process. Motivated by ’90s/2000s big house anthems and their sampling of gospel vocals, the three artists came up with an innovative way to get exactly the sound they were after:
“We were like, ‘wouldn’t it be sick to make something where everyone asks us: what sample is that? But actually, we recorded it; it’s actually ours that we’ve made sound more vintage. That was the most exciting idea to do in practice. It was 117 vocal tapes; we built a gospel choir with three people. It really is the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life. There’s this breakdown in it that literally sounds like you’re in 1987 in a South Bronx church; it’s stunning.”
Whether it’s coming up with new song ideas in the middle of a DJ set, sonically reversing time to manifest a needed sample, or moving from their native country to improve their sound, BIIANCO is an innovative, passionate, and much-needed change of pace in the current CDJs across the USA. If you want to catch BIIANCO set the dancefloor ablaze with their arsenal of instruments and hip-shaking grooves, catch them on tour soon.