They may not be soundtracking opening ceremonies, Guetta-style, yet but the influence of Bicep’s Andy Ferguson and Matt McBriar on UK dance music runs deep. As DJs, producers, promoters, label owners and now a live act, the Belfast-born duo have played a crucial role in this decade’s house music renaissance. It all began when they started a blog called Feel My Bicep in 2008. At its peak, they were posting more than 100 tracks per week, scouring the racks of record stores by day before ripping and uploading the choicest cuts by night. “It became addictive,” admits Ferguson. “The more we posted, the more people would come.”
Their ability to unearth obscure disco gems, electronic oddities and lost club classics won them an audience of 100,000 visitors a month. When they graduated to DJing in 2010, it soon became clear that Bicep’s blogging background, far from being a stigma, actually gave them an advantage over big-name DJs. Blogging’s curatorial aspects taught them how to be versatile and educate a crowd without bashing them over the heads with music they don’t want to hear. The only time they were flummoxed was when playing before Skrillex at a Swiss festival.
“There were probably 10,000 people there and we were playing 90s house vinyl with no real impact points,” recalls McBriar of their set. “All these kids wanted to hear were rockets going off. It was flat as a pancake.” Their response was to invest in analogue gear and make bespoke edits, so that those said 90s house tracks would kick hard enough to drop into a set of 2010s techno.
The next logical step was for Bicep to abandon the reliance on other people’s records altogether. They now make their own tunes and have a live show where they can remix them on the fly. McBriar admits that their live debut at Belfast’s AVA festival in June was nerve-racking but “being able to create something new in a moment and then never get it back is quite exciting”.
Bicep are also trying to finish their debut album – a crossover record in the vein of Orbital or Moby – but they’ve continued with Feel My Bicep. They might be down to about six posts a month, yet the duo still hope their write-ups provide a valuable service. “With YouTube, SoundCloud and Apple Music, people just listen to a song with a photograph of the record cover and then they click ‘next’ and there’s no context,” says McBriar. “I struggle to find new music now, without that kind of curation,” adds Ferguson.
In a way, McBriar admits, blogging remains the very purest form of their musical evangelism. “There’s no pressure for anyone to listen or dance, so you’re completely free.”
Bicep play Glasgow’s Sub Club on Friday 19 August
