IT WAS in January 2014 that the name East India Youth really got out there. The stage name of Bournemouth-raised York-based electronic musician William Doyle – inspired in part by the East India Docks area in east London – East India Youth’s debut album Total Strife Forever was released on January 13 two years ago and Doyle hasn’t looked back since.
Despite the album being released so early in the year, it was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize and ended up on a host of 'best albums of 2014’ polls.
Doyle’s brilliant knack for electronica means he can be compared to the likes of Caribou and Ulrich Schnauss, but he’s a man who likes to mix his styles and a song such as Dripping Down (from Total Strife Forever) is more akin to The Beatles or Badly Drawn Boy than any dance act.
“That's always been a natural thing for me – to have a song that sounds incredibly different to the song just before it. I like doing that. But I guess whatever I do next won't be quite as erratic stylistically.”
You might think that Doyle is a particularly prolific recording artist when you note that his second album, Culture of Volume, was released just over a year after his debut. But he can explain the seemingly speedy turnaround.
“Well I'd finished Total Strife Forever about a year-and-a-half before it actually came out, so I started working on Culture of Volume straight after that. So the second one took about two years to make but ended up coming out a year after the first one.
“Maybe we could have left it a bit longer but we wanted to ride the momentum that I'd picked up from the Mercury Prize nomination and all that stuff; it felt like a good idea to keep it going.”
The debut album was Mercury-nominated alongside such names as Damon Albarn, FKA Twigs, Bombay Bicycle Club, Anna Calvi, Jungle, Royal Blood and eventual winners Young Fathers.
Doyle said getting nominated and the whole media buzz that surrounds that “can only be a positive thing”.
“I had very modest ambitions for the album, really,” he says. “I made it at home and it still feels like this lo-fi thing to me, not the kind of thing where I'd end up sharing a stage with FKA Twigs or whatever.
“But my label at the time seemed quite sure that it would get nominated and I was just happy to ride the wave of their enthusiasm; but then they were right.
“It's something that is seen as this mark of quality, but I don't think it's made much difference in terms of my fanbase. But I had a great time and it was an important thing to happen.”
Having released his second album last April, he ended the year by putting out a remix EP on which drone pioneer Blanck Mass, Japanese field recording enthusiast Yosi Horikawa and techno talent Truss remixed the East India Youth tracks Manner of Words and Montage Resolution.
“Those are three artists I really respect, so it was nice to do something with them,” he says. “Remixes are a standard industry tool now. It keeps the life of something going and it allows you to show your appreciation for other artists and maybe start a dialogue with people and then look into a collaboration.
“I'm always interested to hear what people do with my stuff. And from being on the receiving end of it, I know that they can be lucrative.”
Is there anyone he’d specifically like to hear remixing some of his material?
“Well there's more people I'd like to write with than have do a remix. I'd like to hear what Jon Hopkins would do with my stuff. I know he doesn't do remixes very often but maybe he could make an exception one day.”
Doyle plays Belfast tonight and Dublin tomorrow and he has said that these are his “last European gigs until at least 2017”.
“After these I’m off to Singapore and New Zealand and Australia and then I'm taking a long break from touring.”
He’s looking forward to seeing sets by other acts at the Laneway festivals in Sinagpore, Australia and New Zealand.
“I love the new Grimes record, so I'll be interested to see what she does with it live.”
He says he has played Ireland a few times up to now.
“The response has always been great there. I’ve done festivals and I've played Dublin a few times, but I haven't played Northern Ireland much. I did Other Voices in Derry a couple of years ago and that was great. This will be my first time in Belfast.”
So what are his plans for the gig?
“It'll be a mixture of the two records. I think I'll bring back a lot of the instrumental stuff from the first album, because I feel like that's more where I'm going at the moment. It'll basically be me on stage in a suit getting very sweaty.”
:: East India Youth play The Black Box in Belfast tonight at 9pm, with support from Ryan Vail, as part of Out to Lunch (www.cqaf.com). Tickets £10. Culture of Volume is out now on XL Recordings.
