Subcity Presents - Dylan Henner
Dylan Henner landed on the ambient scene in 2020 with cassette releases for Phantom Limb, Belgian label Dauw, and cult tastemakers AD93. He barely promotes himself publicly, instead choosing to communicate through disarmingly poetic song titles. His debut album “The Invention of the Human” (AD93, 2020 - a recipient of BBC 6Music’s Album of the Year honours) responds to a set of philosophical questions - what exactly makes us human? What good is civilisation when there’s so much misery attached to it? How will technology affect humanity in the long run? In 2022, he released follow-up You Always Will Be on AD93, which traced the course of a single life from birth, to childhood, to adolescence, adulthood, parenthood, middle-age, old-age, and demise. He has also covered Raymond Scott, Terry Riley, Aphex Twin, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Su Tissue among numerous further projects.
"Star Dream FM", released in October of last year, is said to be taped from a mysterious radio broadcast that plays Henner’s favourite memories from adolescence. This fictional backdrop represents a tactile canvas on which the record’s true meaning is painted. It is, through his now-characteristic employment of ambient-textured synthesis, marimba, digital choir, and processed voice, a study of late adolescence and the experience of being seventeen. The result of this examination is a collection of meticulously constructed human-not-human compositions built from Henner’s mesmeric brand of desolate beauty. His immersive, storytelling range is broad, spanning from serene to cerebral, from powerful to uncanny. Henner references ambient and experimental music, chamber composition, the human voice, sound design, and field recordings, and wraps everything in the myth of his imaginary radio station Star Dream FM.
We're delighted to have Dylan in the studio with us this Sunday, where we'll pick his brain and hear some music before his gig at the Glad Cafe.
Dylan Henner - I Borrowed my Dad's Car But We Had Nowhere To Go So We Drove Around Listening to Music All Night
Dylan Henner - The House Party Went On So Long We Talked and Drank and Played Music til The Morning
David Darling & The Wulu Bunun - Ku-Isa Tama Laug
DJ Lycox - Red Lights
Chuquimamani-Condori - Breathing
Sparrow Henner - I Am a Zebra
Oliver Coates - A Church (Dylan Henner remix)
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