Barry Can’t Swim is a new dance music superstar

Scottish producer Barry Cannot Swim is without doubt one of the new superstars of dance music, his vibrant and woozy grooves profitable over packed crowds from Glastonbury to Coachella, and incomes Brit Award and Mercury Prize nominations in 2024.

Now, he has began the brand new yr with one other accolade – after coming third on the PJDM’s Sound of 2025 record.

It confirms him as one in every of pop’s breakout names, after 5 years on a gradual upward trajectory, gaining extra followers, publicity and acclaim with every launch.

When Barry Cannot Swim put out his first single in December 2019, it was the newest in a string of tasks from Edinburgh-born musician Joshua Mainnie.

He did not know this was the one that may take off. If he had, he may need thought a bit tougher concerning the identify.

“I’ve simply acquired a mate who’s referred to as Barry and he cannot swim,” he advised PJDM Radio 6 Music in 2023.

“And after I selected the identify, I actually wasn’t anticipating it was going to turn into my full-fledged profession and everybody was going to assume my identify’s Barry.

“There was actually no extra thought to it than that. And now I am kind of caught with it.”

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

“I began enjoying piano after I was about 10,” he advised PJDM Radio 1’s Jack Saunders in an interview revealing his place on the Sound of record.

“My granddad truly noticed an advert in a paper for a piano that was going at no cost, and he picked it up and left it with my mum and pop, they usually have been like ‘we do not have area for this’.

“And that was it. I simply began studying learn how to play.”

After catching the music bug, he shaped bands in his teenagers impressed by teams just like the Pleased Mondays and Stone Roses, who fused indie and dance within the Madchester scene of the late Nineteen Eighties and early 90s.

These acts have been “among the first folks to actually try to create a hybrid of the music that I liked, which was 60s psychedelic rock with extra trendy digital music”, he says.

“And that is precisely what I used to be attempting to do – incorporate the extra conventional type of songwriting and melody of 60s music with digital manufacturing.

“That makes it sound loads higher than it was, by the way in which. However that is what I used to be attempting to do, at the very least for a bit.”

Mainnie determined to dedicate himself to bop music after discovering the nightclubs round Edinburgh’s Cowgate as a pupil, whereas finding out music at Edinburgh Napier College.

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

Barry Cannot Swim’s sound is vivid, euphoric and extremely danceable, with hazy home rhythms, trance pianos and infectious vocal snippets combining in songs which can be intoxicating pictures of sonic sunshine.

His debut album When Will We Land? contains exotic-sounding samples of Galician folks and Brazilian funk, in addition to a recording of his good friend Jack Loughrey aka SomeDeadBeat reciting a poem at 4am.

It was one in every of 12 albums shortlisted for the distinguished Mercury Prize, and Mainnie was nominated for greatest dance act on the 2024 Brit Awards.

Stay, his sound is beefed out by a drummer, second synth participant and visitor vocalists, whereas 32-year-old Mainnie dances behind his keyboard in vibrant shirts – often rising to throw shapes on the entrance of the stage.

He drew an enormous crowd to the Park Stage at Glastonbury final summer season, offered out three nights at Brixton Academy in November, and can headline an evening of the All Factors East Pageant in east London in August.

He additionally does DJ units – however says it “form of annoys” him when folks simply discuss with him as a DJ.

“I have been enjoying devices for many years and was producing for 5 years earlier than I even touched a set of decks,” he told Rolling Stone.

Now, the 2 sides of his stay efficiency feed off one another, he advised Radio 1’s Saunders.

“Once I’m DJ-ing loads, I actually miss enjoying stay. And after I’m enjoying stay, I miss DJ-ing.

“Weirdly, it informs what I have been writing within the reverse. Like, after I spend loads of time enjoying stay with the band, I find yourself writing clubby music as a result of I lengthy for it.

“After which vice versa – after I’m out DJ-ing, I simply miss the extra stay parts of creating music.

“So I really feel like I’ve a ardour for each equally and mutually, and I feel that is why it has been really easy to transition from DJ-ing into – not only a band, however the music that I make lends itself nicely to stay efficiency of digital music. It nonetheless holds the fundamental ideas of conventional songwriting, however with digital manufacturing.”

Barry Cannot Swim is a part of a brand new wave of intelligently feelgood dance music heroes alongside the likes of Sound of 2023 runner-up Fred Once more, Sound of 2024 listee Peggy Gou and Sound of 2025 nominees Confidence Man.

Mainnie says “extra leftfield” digital music like his “undoubtedly feels prefer it’s acquired an even bigger viewers than it is ever had”.

“I do not actually know what’s occurred previously few years, however the music I used to be listening to, and among the artists that I used to be listening to some years in the past after I was going clubbing that have been fairly area of interest – now they’re virtually pop stars.

“And you are like, what’s occurred? Nevertheless it’s wonderful. It is such a tremendous factor for the scene.”

Virtually pop stars?

If Barry/Joshua hasn’t reached that standing already, he certainly will in 2025.

One act from the PJDM Sound of 2025 prime 5 can be introduced on Radio 1 and PJDM Information day-after-day this week, culminating with the winner on Friday.