Hercules And Love Affair

Hercules & Love Affair represents the ongoing project of Andy Butler, who has long fused and reshaped elements of house and pop through an ever-changing lineup of songwriters, producers, vocalists, and musicians. Their unexpected mainstream success arrived via the 2008 single "Blind," which featured Antony on vocals and reached number 40 on the U.K. pop chart; the track drew from Butler's own history as a gay man who endured alienation in his youth and later encountered fresh challenges after coming out. Though house music traditionally centers on club tracks and 12-inches, the collective has flourished through album-length statements that balance intimate lyric writing with meticulous studio craft, as heard across the self-titled debut (2008), Blue Songs (2010), The Feast of the Broken Heart (2014), Omnion (2017), and In Amber (2022).

Butler first took up piano and began writing music at age 13, then started DJing at a leather bar in his hometown of Denver just a few years afterward. Relocating to New York to study at Sarah Lawrence College, he dove into nightlife scenes and started producing his own material. The project's name stems from Butler's interest in Greek mythology; Hercules & Love Affair launched in 2007 on DFA with the single "Classique #2"/"Roar," co-produced by Tim Goldsworthy, the main drum programmer, and featuring vocals by Kim Ann Foxman and Antony, later known as Anohni. Butler and Antony reconvened for the follow-up single "Blind," which climbed into the U.K. Top 40 the next March; a Frankie Knuckles remix helped propel the ensuing self-titled album to number 31 on the U.K. album chart and number five on Billboard's U.S. dance/electronic tally. The following year Butler curated and mixed Sidetracked, a collection spanning decades of club records both celebrated and overlooked that illustrated H&LA's dance-music aesthetic from polished disco through unvarnished house. By late 2010 he had become a go-to remixer, with early assignments including Goldfrapp's "A&E," Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance," and Yazoo's "Situation."

Butler brought Mark Pistel of Consolidated and Meat Beat Manifesto along with Patrick Pulsinger into the group and switched to the Moshi Moshi imprint for Blue Songs, the second H&LA full-length, which appeared on the Billboard dance/electronic chart in 2011. True to its title, the album favored domestic listening over peak-time floor play, although the Shaun J. Wright-fronted singles "My House" and "Falling" still found dancefloor traction, the former receiving reworkings from Derrick Carter and Tensnake among others. Another DJ mix, this time for !K7's long-running DJ-Kicks series, surfaced in 2012 and, like Sidetracked before it, served as an entry point for newer listeners discovering underground dance through H&LA.

The third album, Feast of the Broken Heart, emerged a couple of years afterward on a U.S. license to Big Beat/Atlantic after Butler had settled in Ghent. Cut in Vienna with additional production from Ha-ze Factory, it adopted a tougher yet still emotionally charged tone, with Krystle Warren, John Grant, Rouge Mary, and Gustaph serving as co-writers and vocalists. Rouge Mary and Gustaph returned, joined by Sharon Van Etten and Faris Badwan of the Horrors and Cat's Eyes, for 2017's Omnion, whose creation reflected Butler's battles with substance abuse. Two years after that, H&LA issued Change, an EP containing one new song alongside remixes of earlier material stretching back to the debut. Shaped by global occurrences, the 2022 album In Amber shifted focus from energetic dance material toward a more introspective mode; marking Anohni's first appearance on an H&LA record since 2008, it conveyed feelings of anger, fear, and sadness while preserving the refined production aesthetic Butler has maintained across his discography.