Multi-instrumentalist and producer Joseph Mount supplies Metronomy with clever melodies and compositions that rank the group among the most inventive outfits fusing electronic pop and indie rock. Influences spanning Devo and David Bowie through N.E.R.D. and Pavement helped Mount shape the project into a band that proved both infectious and surprising on the raw, lo-fi 2006 album Pip Paine (Pay the £5000 You Owe). Later releases grew more polished and refined, yet continued to insert unexpected turns, whether the Motown and blue-eyed soul tributes on 2014’s Love Letters or the retro-futurism of 2019’s Metronomy Forever. The seemingly bright pop of 2022’s Small World and the hip-hop-tinged 2024 single “Nice Town,” a collaboration with Pan Amsterdam, showed Mount still expanding Metronomy’s stylistic range.
The name Metronomy derives from the musical device that gauges tempo; Mount launched the project in 1999 as a side venture alongside other bands he performed in, tracking material on an aging computer given to him by his father. The first complete band lineup featured keyboardist/saxophonist Oscar Cash together with keyboardist/bassist Gabriel Stebbing. Before Metronomy existed, Mount and Stebbing had played in the Upsides, a pop outfit they once called “the original Busted,” and in the Customers, a group active during their university years. Cash’s arrival as Mount’s cousin turned the trio into the members’ central focus. Early attention arrived through lively concerts and a series of official and unofficial remixes for Gorillaz, Architecture in Helsinki, Sebastien Tellier, Kate Nash, U2, and Britney Spears.
An EP appeared on the band’s own imprint in early 2002; after a DJ set in Brighton, Mount met the head of Holiphonic Records, which issued the debut single “You Could Easily Have Me” in late 2005. For the June 2006 full-length Pip Paine (Pay the £5000 You Owe), Mount drew from sources that included Aphex Twin and Kraftwerk as well as Frank Zappa and Talking Heads.
A contract with Because Music led to the single Radio Ladio on the Need Now Future label in November 2007. The second album, Nights Out, followed the next September. Centered on letdowns during evenings out, the record featured greater input from Cash and Stebbing. Tracks such as “Heartbreaker” and “My Heart Rate Rapid” broadened the audience; Nights Out eventually earned double-silver certification after surpassing 40,000 copies sold across Europe. The Not Made for Love EP arrived in 2009, the same year Stebbing departed to concentrate on his band Your Twenties. Bassist Gbenga Adelekan and former Lightspeed Champion drummer Anna Prior completed the lineup for April 2011’s The English Riviera, which displayed a smoother texture than earlier material. Cut in London and Paris, the album achieved both commercial and critical success, climbing to number 28 on the U.K. charts, moving more than 60,000 units, and securing a Mercury Prize nomination.
Mount and the group pursued an alternate path on the fourth album, March 2014’s Love Letters. Drawing from the Supremes, the Zombies, and Sly & the Family Stone, the band tracked the set at Toe Rag, the all-analog London studio used by indie rock acts including the White Stripes and the Cribs. Singles “I’m Aquarius” and “Love Letters”—the latter boasting a Michel Gondry-directed video—previewed the blend of vintage warmth and forward-thinking pop before the March 2014 release. The album reached number seven on the U.K. albums chart, Metronomy’s highest placement at that point. For the following record Mount shifted direction once more, renting a studio just outside Paris and composing and tracking an entire collection alone in two weeks. The funky Summer 08, which revisited the energetic spirit of the Nights Out period and included appearances by Mix Master Mike, Erol Alkan, and Robyn, emerged in July 2016. Mount subsequently collaborated with Robyn on her acclaimed 2018 album Honey, co-writing and producing several tracks.
After Mount relocated from Paris to the English countryside, Metronomy issued Metronomy Forever in September 2019. With additional production from Mr. Oizo and Pierre Rousseau, the album moved between new wave-leaning pop and shapeless synth explorations, landing at number 15 on the U.K. Albums Chart. Two years afterward came the Posse EP, Vol. 1, a Handsome Boy Modeling School-styled effort that paired Mount with Biig Piig, Pinty, Sorry, and Brian Nasty. Mount and the band reappeared in February 2022 with Small World, a compact, hopeful collection written and recorded amid the COVID-19 global pandemic. The album became a Top Ten hit in the U.K. and registered on charts in multiple European territories.
Following their 2022 Glastonbury Festival appearance, Metronomy paused live shows while Mount developed fresh material. The project resurfaced in March 2024 with the single “Nice Town,” a collaboration with jazz-influenced rapper Pan Amsterdam that served as Metronomy’s first release on Ninja Tune.
