Occasionally, along comes a band that perfectly captures so much of what is thrilling about music right now. In 2017, mining the golden moments of pop’s past, sights firmly set on the giddy possibilities of music’s future, emitting an infectious sense of wonky fun and producing a kaleidoscopic riot of sound and visuals, that band could well be Superorganism.

Superorganism is a sprawling, multi-limbed collection of international musicians and pop culture junkies. They number eight in total – recruited from London, Japan, Australia and New Zealand – seven of whom now live together in a house-stroke-DIY studio-stroke-band HQ in Homerton, east London.

It was in this house, in January 2017, that the collective had their Big Bang moment. Though they’d previously created music and visuals together, this was something distinctly fresh. They sent the track to their friend Orono, a Japanese student who at that time was studying at high school in Maine, New England. Orono wrote and recorded a vocal part and pressed ‘reply’. What came back across the Atlantic was an intoxicating piece of idiosyncratic, technicolor pop. That track was ‘Something For Your M.I.N.D.’. Superorganism was born.  

At that point it’s unlikely any of the members would have expected to hear that track – or its follow up AA single  ‘It’s All Good’ / ‘Nobody Cares’ – played by Frank Ocean or Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig themselves on their respective radio shows.  Or that the band’s identity would be the subject of so much speculation. Or that they would sign a deal with the legendary independent Domino label. Or that there’d be such demand to see Superorganism live that their debut UK show would take place at London’s 700 capacity Village Underground venue. But over the last few months, such is the trajectory of this unique band, that that is exactly what has happened.

“They will fuck with your brain, turn it inside out, make you question what you knew to be possible from the art of using instruments to make music” – Noisey