“It’s a love song for an old friend” – Runners, the debut single by London-based musician Louis Grace feels like being dipped into a memory. Hazy and flickering with emotion, you can sense narratives and characters drifting in and out of focus through pitched-up harmonies, glitchy beats and screeching, fragmented samples. In this, Grace’s soft, ambient voice becomes an anchor in choppy currents. It’s an incredibly assured debut, though not an unexpected one. Having spent years playing in bands including Legss, Nukuluk and Lowertown, Grace arrives as a solo artist with a fully formed voice and a clear sense of identity. The accompanying video echoes the track, shot at the club his dad runs, the abstract narrative follows a cast of regulars in surreal, offbeat moments – from a Natural Born Killers couple to a dancefloor horse.

On the track…
“Runners is a catchy pop song cloaked in lo-fi distortion. It’s a love song for an old friend, reminiscent of adolescence. The track is acoustic but has electronic elements and the production is playful yet chaotic. In the choruses, you can hear an ensemble of pitched-up childlike harmonies followed by crushed drum breaks and heavy synths. I find I write a lot of my music as if I’m thinking of it like a film, focusing on characters and scenes, then contextualising it later. Like a film, I also put a big focus on the intro. I’m releasing this song with A Vacuum Is My Breath, which is basically one long build. I won’t go into too much detail on this track, but I think I prefer it to Runners.”

On the video…
“The film was so funny to make – I can’t believe we actually made it happen. We shot it at my dad’s club, which used to be the men’s social club for the workers at the local Thames water works. My dad used to play there with his own band and then when I was starting out my band would play in between the sets of the adult bands. Years later, now my dad is running the venue. A lot of the cast are all local to the venue – the horse as well! It attracts some wonderfully peculiar characters. The film has natural elements and if anything, it feels like a hyperrealised take on normality. The horse was quite an important piece. Originally, I wanted youths in balaclavas invading and vandalising the building but because of health and safety it became what it is now. There’s not much of a storyline to the film, we loosely follow a couple who start shooting the place up, but their roles are more vehicles to portray my own insecurities.”

“Runners is a catchy pop song cloaked in lo-fi distortion.”

On recording Runners…
“I often start a song with a non-diegetic sound that I’ve processed and manipulated to find a vibe that I like, and then I’ll write to that. In this instance, I sampled Georgia Ellery’s violin from a project we did years ago, sampling it until it was completely unrecognisable. Then I found a basic chord progression that I could layer a bunch of stuff on top of, and kept the rhythm fairly simple to give me more room to play with the production. Production is a massive part of my songwriting; the production techniques I use often influence the main melody and hook of a song. I use equipment like the Teac 144 and will reverse cassette takes and re-record them into my DAW. In this song, I use a harsh side chain compressor that gives it a club sound, but then apply it to bizarre squeaky sounds to juxtapose the pop sensibility with something quite challenging to listen to.”

“I write a lot of my music as if I’m thinking of it like a film, focusing on characters and scenes…”

On his solo project…
“[It’s] exciting, and runs parallel with the sound design and composition work I do. My plan is to release consistent work until I feel ready to drop an album. I want to collaborate and I want to play live – I have a live set which blends ambient, experimental and pop music.”

Louis Grace plays at The Horse Hospital on 17th June, alongside a screening of the Runners music video – more info here.