Released: 2020
To paraphrase another thing from a different media, the best kind of celebrity is going somewhere everybody doesn’t know your name. Recently on a night out the thumping hip hop of Groove Armada’s Superstylin’ filled the bar with noise, much to the delight of a twenty something group of people on a post work evening. Released in 2002, with most of them probably in nappies when it came out, it was easy to guess that they knew the song but had no clue who’d made it.
Andy Cato and Tom Findlay arrived when the idea of faceless boffins making club music for non-clubbers was in full swing, a generation which also included Basement Jaxx, Daft Punk and The Chemical Brothers. As that rusted they continued in ever decreasing commercial circles, producing a fine later album in 2010’s Black Light, before stepping back from the write/record/tour cycle.
Their final effort Edge of The Horizon met with some critical ire, one scribe at The Arts Desk confusingly pitching it as Yacht Rock and even more angrily as “riddled with REO Speedwagon-get-funky power ballad vibes.” Scathing yes, but it missed the point entirely; Groove Armada were never trying to be Aphex Twin.
Lover 4 Now like most other GA grooves was music for the good times – which was sorely needed in 2020 – and scored extra extra bonus points for being modelled almost entirely on Clio’s Italo Disco classic Faces. Almost famous but can’t get arrested on your own street? Just know that the works night out guys love you, even if they have no idea who you are.
The Voice Of Unreason 
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