Bibio | |
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| Birth name | Stephen James Wilkinson |
| Also known as |
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| Born | (1978-12-04)4 December 1978 (age 46) |
| Origin | West Midlands, England |
| Genres | Folktronica,indie pop,indie rock,ambient |
| Occupations |
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| Instruments |
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| Years active | 2005–present |
| Labels | |
| Website | bibio |
Stephen James Wilkinson (born 4 December 1978),[1] better known asBibio, is an English musician and producer. He is known for a distinct analoglo-fi sound, and for working in a diverse range of genres, beginning infolktronica andambient and later stretching to includeinstrumental hip hop,indie pop,electronica,soul,funk, andalternative R&B.
He currently releases music onWarp Records,[2] and previously released onMush Records.
A resident ofWolverhampton in theWest Midlands, England, Wilkinson developed a passion for experimental music during his time atMiddlesex University in London from 1999 to 2003, where he studied "sonic arts". His earliest songs were mainly layered guitar compositions inspired bySteve Reich'sElectric Counterpoint, one of his earliest being "Cantaloup Carousel", which was originally recorded in 1999 at his university residence. His recording equipment at the time consisted of a "plastic" microphone, a budgetsampler,cassette deck, and a portableMiniDisc recorder.[3]
Listening to music onWarp Records in 2000 led him to experiment with programming virtual synthesizers inSuperCollider, which he was introduced to via his university classes. His discovery ofNick Drake andThe Incredible String Band in 2001 also encouraged him to try fingerpicking and alternative guitar tunings, which "opened up new avenues of melodic expression and serendipity" and "made playing guitar feel fresh and exciting again". Wilkinson credits these "happy days of discovery" at university with helping develop his signature lo-fi sound.[3]
Upon graduating, Wilkinson left London and returned to Wolverhampton, setting up a recording space in the spare bedroom of his girlfriend's parents' house.[3] He worked part time while recording music, and was briefly a lecturer at Stafford College teaching Music Technology.[4] After sharing his collection of recordings with Marcus Eoin ofBoards of Canada, Eoin recommended Bibio to American indie labelMush Records, who signed Wilkinson in 2004.[5] He adopted the name "Bibio" from the name of a black-and-red artificial fly his father used on fly-fishing trips for trout in Wales.[6]
Wilkinson's university recordings from 1999 to 2003 formed the basis of his debut albumfi, released in February 2005.[7] Sophomore albumHand Cranked was released March 2006, and continued in a similar style, seeking to emulate the sound of mechanicalmusic boxes using antique instruments.[8][9][10] His third full-length albumVignetting the Compost, released February 2009, carried on with his signature sound while progressing towards more traditional folk song structures.[11] Digital only EPOvals and Emeralds followed in March 2009 and explored circus music and the sounds offairground organs.[12]
Bibio's output on Mush Records mostly consisted of instrumental guitar compositions, centered around the use of looped melodies, ambient field recordings, found sounds, tape distortion and manipulation, additional folk instruments, and gentle synth drones. Only occasional songs featured vocals ("Mr. and Mrs. Compost", "Great Are The Piths", "Abberiw", and "Flesh Rots, Pips Sown"). Bibio occasionally worked withLetherette during this time, after Wilkinson met Richard Roberts working at the same pub as him. Roberts co-wrote and co-produced several Bibio songs, the pair began a short lived music project named SK Dreams, and the three along withMatt Cutler started a record label named Artists' Valley, which released a limited 7-inch Bibio single "Shelia Sets Sail" in 2005.[13][14]
While continuing to record lo-fi guitar pieces, Wilkinson was inspired by artists likeJ Dilla,MF Doom, andMadlib to begin a short-lived hip hop side project named Duckula. Listening toDaft Punk and Warp Records artists also inspired him to create 90sfrench house and electronica tracks, and Brazilian guitarists likeMarcos Valle andJoão Gilberto deeply influenced his guitar playing and led him to write funk, soul, and samba inspired pieces. After a period of trying to separate his various styles into different side projects, Wilkinson was encouraged by his friends to de-compartmentalize and merge his interests under the Bibio name.[3]
In 2007, he recorded the song "Ambivalence Avenue", which he now regards as a milestone in his career – "it combined the lofi tapey Bibio guitar sound with weightier beat based production, fingerpicking with jazz chords, it had a Brazilian influence, a folk influence and a hip hop influence, it was a realization of an idea in my head trying to come out, it was a combination I had been striving for a while. Making this track gave me a new confidence and triggered what became the most prolific period of my life so far." The song caught the attention of Steve Beckett of Warp Records, who encouraged him to keep recording in this style. Wilkinson "knuckled down" and recorded the tracks that would make upAmbivalence Avenue between 2007 and 2008. On the strength of these recordings Bibio signed to Warp Records in August 2008.[3]
Ambivalence Avenue was released in June 2009, four months afterOvals and Emeralds, and marked the start of a new sound and era, embracing vocals, hip-hop beats, folk and pop song structures, and funk/soul guitars.[15] Wilkinson regarded it as "another debut album" and recalled recording the album during "difficult years, having a degree that meant nothing to the world around me... being in my mid 20s and not knowing where I was heading in life in a town with little opportunity," and was uncertain whether people would enjoy its variety.Ambivalence Avenue was met with largely favorable reviews, withTiny Mix Tapes describing it as his "most creative and penetrating release yet"[16] andPitchfork ranking it as the 33rd best album of 2009,[17] stating "it's shocking how utterly and successfully he rewrites his playbook." Some reviewers were more critical, withDrowned in Sound claiming "Bibio's tendency... to either smooth the edges of his creations into non-threatening abstraction or fail to zone in on his best ideas is frustrating."[18]
Companion releaseThe Apple and the Tooth followed shortly after in November 2009, his fourth major release of the year, featuring four new songs and eight remixes of tracks fromAmbivalence Avenue. The original tracks were described as "expert, full of electronic papier-mache layers of arpeggiated guitars, glitchy drum patterns and joyful percussive samples," byThe Guardian.[19] In some publications, it is referred to as Bibio's fifth album due to its length.
Genres are the menu and music is the food, and I prefer to eat food and not the menu.
Bibio's next studio album,Mind Bokeh, was released on 29 March 2011 in the US and 4 April in the UK, promoted by the single "Excuses" in February 2011. It continued the sound ofAmbivalence Avenue with more mixing of genres, including forays intopower pop on "Take Off Your Shirt" andmicrohouse on "Saint Christopher". Wilkinson described the album as having a "balance of the familiar and the non-familiar."[21]Mind Bokeh was met with mixed reviews.Clash rankedMind Bokeh the 24th best album of 2011,[22] andSlant praised the album for being "fluid and formless, committing to pop structure and melodies one moment only to eschew them the next, often all within the same track",[23] while Tiny Mix Tapes called the album "an ugly stepchild of a record, neither diverting enough to work as pop nor novel enough to satisfy as pure electronic music,"[24] andXLR8R felt the LP had "a less than desirable success rate".[25]
Mind Bokeh was followed by two accompanying EPs,K is For Kelson in May 2011 andT.O.Y.S. in August 2011, which featured alternate versions of "K is For Kelson" and "Take Off Your Shirt" respectively alongside new music.
Bibio's sixth recordSilver Wilkinson, named after a fishing fly found in a charity shop, was recorded shortly afterMind Bokeh and was released 13 May 2013. Wilkinson took lyrical inspiration from films and daydreams and sought a "cinematic, panoramic and lush" sound for the record, while electing to "pick up the guitar more and focus on a more melancholy live sound".[26] "Sycamore Silhouetting" dates back to 2007–2008 and existed in "many different versions" before being finished forSilver Wilkinson, and "You" began as part of the side projects which led toAmbivalence Avenue.[27] Significant parts of lead single "À tout à l'heure" and "Dye the Water Green" were recorded outdoors in Wilkinson's garden.[28] Wilkinson described the album as his "most melancholy perhaps as a whole".[29] The album was met with mostly positive reviews, withAllMusic praising the album as "a scenic route through Bibio's music that showcases its depth as well as its breadth."
Silver Wilkinson was followed byThe Green EP, released in January 2014, which features archive tracks chosen to compliment Wilkinson's favorite track "Dye the Water Green".[13]
Bibio next contributed "Dye the Water Green" and six original songs to the 2014 filmMen, Women & Children, directed byJason Reitman. Wilkinson spent a day with Reitman playing unreleased tracks over film footage, and described the experience as "very perfect, like dream come true stuff". Four of the six original songs appear on the film's soundtrack album.[30]
In 2015, Warp Records reissuedfi for its 10th anniversary, adding an uncut version of album closer "Poplar Avenue".[31]
Released 1 April 2016, Bibio's seventh studio albumA Mineral Love featured collaborations withGotye, Oliver St.Louis, and Wax Stag, as well as a prominent 70s, 80s, and alternative R&B sound,[32][33] and was described by PopMatters as a "joyous yacht-psych fever dream".[34] Wilkinson began the sessions forA Mineral Love in February 2015 by building a sound-proof home studio, which he credits with helping take the album away from the "bedroom producer approach" of his earlier records, and citedSly and the Family Stone,Stevie Wonder,Joni Mitchell,Steely Dan,Prince andB. B. & Q. Band as influences on the album.[35] Wilkinson had been friends with Wax Stag from early on in his career, while his collaboration withGotye happened entirely over email, the pair never met.[32] Bibio was introduced to Olivier St.Louis through his feature onHudson Mohawke's song "Butter" and bonded with him quickly over "guitars, brogues and watches".[35] Their collaboration led to further meetings, and in September 2017 the follow-upThe Serious EP was released, featuring three more songs written by the pair.[36] The song "Why So Serious" was included in the soundtrack for Ubisoft's 2017 video game Watch Dogs 2.
Another followup EPBeyond Serious was released on 12" and digital on 5 May 2017. Wilkinson had been makinghouse music since "before the name Bibio came into being" and had always wanted to release "an EP or something of just house tracks". Inspired by a recent purchase of aRoland TR-808, Wilkinson recorded four tracks using nothing but the machine and a ring modulator, then developed the songs further with synths and chopped manipulated vocals from the recently recordedThe Serious EP.[37]
Phantom Brickworks was released 3 November 2017, preceded by the single "Capel Celyn" on 27 October 2017.[38] In a divergence from his work over the last decade, the album is entirely ambient, made from a set of improvised compositions consisting of processed piano, synth, and guitar loops surrounded bytape hiss andfield recordings. Recorded over ten years, Wilkinson produced the LP based on the concept that "places can be haunted by meaning," reasoning that "human beings are highly sensitive to the atmospheres of places, which can be enhanced or dramatically altered when you learn about the context of their history." Most of the song titles are references to abandoned places in the United Kingdom, such asCapel Celyn, a community inGwynedd,Wales that was intentionally flooded to create a reservoir in 1965, and "Capel Bethania", a song named aftera chapel demolished in 1991.[39]
The album was well received by reviewers, who called it Bibio's most accomplished record. It landed at number 11 onTime Out New York's list of the best albums of 2017.[40]The Line of Best Fit claimed "Bibio has not only created a record that stands apart from his other Warp albums to date, but has cemented his mastery of the atmospheric."[41]
A followup EPPhantom Brickworks (IV & V), featuring two additional tracks from thePhantom Brickworks sessions, was released exactly a year later on 12" and digital on 9 November 2018, along with a limited edition release photo book. The tracks were described as "the ideal bookend to Bibio's project".[42]
Bibio's ninth studio albumRibbons was released on 12 April 2019.[43] The album marks a return to the lo-fi guitar oriented roots of his earlier career, such as on 2009'sVignetting the Compost, while retaining some of the funk and soul influences featured prominently onA Mineral Love.[44] The album was well received by critics, accumulating an overall score of 81 out of 100 onMetacritic, indicating "universal acclaim".[45] Canadian music publicationExclaim! stated, "With Ribbons, it is clear that Bibio is trying to take the best parts of his music over the years and bring them together into one concise, but eclectic, album, and on more than a few moments, he succeeds beautifully."[46]
Ten track EPSleep on the Wing was released June 12, 2020, and was an extension of the lo-fi sound ofRibbons, featuring a variety of traditional string instruments and folk inspired songwriting.[47]AllMusic called it "quintessentially Bibio, and spending more time with it is a joy."[48]
In 2020, Warp Records obtained the rights to Bibio's Mush Records recordings, and began reissuingHand Cranked,Vignetting the Compost, andOvals and Emeralds on vinyl and digital.Hand Cranked was reissued digitally with five bonus tracks, including the original recording of "Cantaloup Carousel" from 1999.
On 08 September 2022, Bibio announced his tenth studio albumBib10 would be released 21 October 2022, calling it "more of a party album" and "an ode to guitar in a very different way."[49] The album received somewhat positive reviews, hailed as "a delight of vintage guitars and old school production techniques"[50] while another reviewer described the album as "burrowing down a not as interesting rabbit hole to search for his groove-based side."[51] There were two follow-up releases in 2023 — theS.O.L. EP presented reworkings of the title track from Alan Braxe and Bibio himself (as Champaign Eagle and 81810), and theSunbursting EP featured seven new songs, including a collaboration with Icelandic saxophonist Óskar Guðjónsson.
In August 2024, a 15th anniversary edition ofAmbivalence Avenue was released with three bonus tracks including an extended version of "all my flower", "art of dying" and "west park", all of which Bibio recorded around the time the original album was made back in 2009.[52]
In November 2024, Bibio released his eleventh albumPhantom Brickworks (LPII) alongside a limited photobook, a continuation of his study of abandoned locations across the Welsh countryside by way of ambient songwriting and photography.[53] In an interveiw on the album withInverted Audio, Wilkinson shared explicitly that "to make aPhantom Brickworks album is more like photography. You go out and shoot a roll of film and there might be one really good photo if you’re lucky. So it takes time to build up a collection of those special takes to make an album."[54]
Bibio rarely performs live in front of an audience, preferring to share studio sessions recorded at home. He embarked on a DJ tour through 2009 and 2010 in support ofAmbivalence Avenue,[55] and continues to DJ live on occasion. He most notably toured a live solo electronic show in 2011, working with midi controllers and a laptop remixing songs fromAmbivalence Avenue andMind Bokeh on the fly, as well as a one-off show in 2017 in Japan where he performed with a TR-808, TB-303, and laptop in the style of hisBeyond Serious EP.[56]
Although he discussed putting a live band together in 2011, none materialized, except for a small band of friends forSilver Wilkinson studio sessions.[57][58] He confessed in 2016, "I said that... because it was expected of me, that forming a band was a logical step to make. In honesty, it's not something I want to do,"[32] and later explained "I like to perform alone in my home or studio into microphones, that's how I like to express myself as a musician, it's a place where I can get lost in my world of imagination and make something for people to connect to, I can't feel like that in front of an audience... it takes me so far out of the zone that I don't feel like I can get into the music."[34]
Stephen Wilkinson creates the majority of the artwork for Bibio – includingfi,Hand Cranked,The Apple and the Tooth,Mind Bokeh,Silver Wilkinson, andRibbons. He also works on videography, having created the film for hisMind Bokeh album sampler, the music video for "A Tout L'heure" and co-directing the video for "Excuses" with Michael Robinson.[59]
Wilkinson is an avid photographer, working with film / analog photography.[60]
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