Formation

South London’s Formation emerged as an electronic/dance outfit whose earliest notices drew parallels with LCD Soundsystem, even though the group came together well after the height of the indie-electronic wave that band had defined. The Ritson twins—Will on vocals and Matt on synths—first hatched the project in 2013, an era when soul, indie, and electronic strands mingled more freely; their approach therefore balanced debts to an earlier wave of acts such as LCD Soundsystem and Friendly Fires with the prevailing U.K. house current and with peers like Jungle, Blood Orange, and the Invisible. Once the brothers had sketched the idea, they promptly enlisted Jonny Tams on bass, Sasha Lewis on synths, and Kai Akinde-Hummel on drums. A self-titled debut EP arrived on 12-inch within their first twelve months. Their profile surged in 2015, inaugurated by the follow-up EP The Young Ones; shortly afterward they joined Foals as support on a European run. The tour was followed by the release of Under the Tracks, whose lead track “All the Rest Is Noise” became their initial major single. The year closed with a Best New Artist nomination at the NME Awards. Throughout 2016 the band logged numerous U.K. festival slots while writing and tracking their first full-length, Look at the Powerful People, which surfaced in the first months of 2017.