The liberally applied \u201cexperimental\u201d descriptor can often read like a a warning: strap in tightly for an onslaught of cringe-worthy sounds called up from the darkest depths of, well… possibly hell. However, in the instance of the classically trained British electro-quartet Clean Bandit, experimental means infectiously danceable tracks that seamlessly blend classical and contemporary music. \u201cWe\u2019re influenced by a little bit of everything,\u201d says keyboardist Jack Patterson when asked what sparked the groups desire to blur the boundaries between genres. \u201cWe don\u2019t really see ourselves as having to be in one specific genre.\u201d Considering the band\u2019s fourth single \u201cRather Be\u201d topped the Dance\/Electronic charts in the UK (also making its way across the pond to Billboard\u2019s Hot 100) and that Atlantic Records has backed the album New Eyes<\/i>, it\u2019s safe to say following the artistic instinct has worked in their favor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe mix our own music, make our own videos, we just go for it,\u201d Patterson explains. It\u2019s a fearless approach, but not without its share of perils. For every hit, there are inevitable misses; some humorous, others heartbreaking. \u201cWhen we were making the video for \u201cDust Clears\u201d, we were in Sweden on this frozen lake and Grace literally fell through the ice! Her cello is the only thing that stopped her from going all the way down,\u201d Patterson says, recounting one of the group\u2019s more lighthearted mishaps. Their exploratory approach to music allows the unbridled creative process to take precedence. Songs like the 2011 single \u201cMozart\u2019s House\u201d are the rewarding outcome of creating purely for the pleasure of it. An upbeat mixture of old-school house and the even older school String Quartet No. 21 by Mozart may not be standard pop fare but Patterson maintains that people have been very receptive. \u201cMost people don\u2019t think it\u2019s too eccentric, but of course you get people who just don\u2019t understand it. It\u2019s not like we started with an agenda to play classical music. This all actually started as an experimental performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the best experiments often do, it began in college; Cambridge University to be exact. While there, Patterson met Neil Amin-Smith and cellist Grace Chatto who were both part of an on-campus string quartet. The trio soon began playing around and added drums and bass to strings\u2014freely incorporating influences from their favorite music. Luke Patterson, Jack\u2019s brother, also joined the group as the drummer. Patterson and Chatto\u2019s study abroad in Moscow turned out to be the last stop on the road to becoming Clean Bandit. It was there and then that Chatto made a friend who affectionately referred to her as \u201ca clean bandit\u201d (a n\u2019er do well or bit of a rascal). Obviously, the name stuck. With a new album out and a UK headline tour on the horizon, it looks as if Clean Bandit is a name we should all get used to hearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The liberally applied \u201cexperimental\u201d descriptor can often read like a a warning: strap in tightly for an onslaught of cringe-worthy sounds called up from the darkest depths of, well… possibly hell. However, in the instance of the classically trained British electro-quartet Clean Bandit, experimental means infectiously danceable tracks that seamlessly blend classical and contemporary music. \u201cWe\u2019re influenced by a little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":3343,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[49],"tags":[179],"class_list":["post-3341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-clean-bandit"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paoQFa-RT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}