Bullion

Nathan Jenkins, a London native who records as Bullion, ranks among the bolder experimentalists working in avant-pop, his body of work stretching from densely collaged hip-hop rooted in samples to buoyant Balearic house. Recognition arrived first with the 2007 mixtape Pet Sounds: In the Key of Dee, an intricate patchwork built from Beach Boys and J Dilla fragments. He went on to place singles and EPs with One-Handed Music, Young Turks, R&S, and Honest Jon’s. The 2012 album Love Me Oh Please Love Me and the 2016 full-length Loop the Loop, both issued on his Deek Recordings label, introduced a polished art-pop aesthetic that fuses acoustic and electronic instrumentation. In 2017 the nautical-themed single Blue Pedro emerged as an unexpected dancefloor success, while the 2020 EP We Had a Good Time and the 2024 album Affection followed, the latter featuring guest turns from Carly Rae Jepsen and Panda Bear.

The same Beach Boys/J Dilla mash-up mixtape Pet Sounds: In the Key of Dee surfaced in 2007, after which Jenkins joined One-Handed Music and delivered the abstract hip-hop sets Get Familiar in 2008 and Young Heartache in 2009. He also supplied remixes for Tricky, Tame Impala, and Model 500. In 2011 Young Turks released the twenty-minute non-LP piece You Drive Me to Plastic and the EP Magic Was Ruler. Jenkins inaugurated Deek Recordings in 2012 with Love Me Oh Please Love Me, a clear shift from his earlier sample-driven work that incorporated his own singing alongside both electronic and acoustic sounds. Additional 2012 output included Say Arr Ee on R&S and Petrol Laughs, a collaboration with Elmore Judd, on Honest Jon’s. Deek later documented other Jenkins projects such as Nautic, formed with Laura Groves and Tic Zogson, and Blludd Relations, formed with Jesse Hackett.

Bullion resurfaced in 2015 with the left-field electro EP Rooster and the single “Keep Up,” a joint effort with Baltimore MC Rye Rye. February 2016 brought Loop the Loop, his first conventional album on Deek; the brightly hued, off-kilter pop record drew cited influence from Bill Nelson and Thomas Dolby and enlisted background vocalist Sampha plus saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings for the title track, while Groves and additional players contributed throughout. Trilogy Tapes issued the 2017 mixtape All Abawd! and the Blue Pedro EP, whose exuberant title cut functions essentially as a house reinterpretation of the theme from the long-running British children’s television series Blue Peter and quickly became one of the producer’s best-known tracks. Further remixes for Rae Morris and Boothroyd appeared, and Jenkins contributed harmonica to David Byrne’s 2018 album American Utopia.

The EP We Had a Good Time, blending relaxed house grooves with trippy pop, arrived in early 2020. Jenkins also produced Westerman’s full-length Your Hero Is Not Dead, released that June. September saw Jagjaguwar issue the tighter, more radio-friendly synth-pop EP Heaven Is Over. In January 2024 Bullion began rolling out tracks ahead of the full-length Affection, his first release for Ghostly International; the album placed Carly Rae Jepsen on “Rare,” Panda Bear on the follow-up single “A City’s Never,” and Charlotte Adigéry elsewhere, ultimately appearing in April 2024.