Low Island

Recipients of the 2020 PPL Momentum Fund, Low Island is made up of childhood friends: singer/multi-instrumentalist Carlos Posada, producer Jamie Jay, bassist Jacob Lively and jazz drummer Felix Higginbottom. Formed in Oxford in 2016, they are instinctive shape-shifters, darting between the uplifting electronica and intimate ballads that have characterised their 4 EPs. It was a step that was both deliberate and natural: ‘there was a euphoria we didn’t always get from indie gigs, but a connection to songs and musicians we felt was missing from club nights'. This sonic eclecticism is set against lyrics that address modern-day loneliness, male fragility and love. It is a sound that has won plaudits from 6music’s Lauren Laverne and Tom Robinson, both including them in their highlights of 2019, as well as the NME, The Times, The Independent and DIY, who described the band as ‘offering ‘the middle ground between In Rainbows electronic wizardry and the life-affirming bangers of Caribou’. Fiercely independent, and born out a shared musical upbringing encompassing jazz, indie, classical and dance music, theirs is a soundtrack to a 20s scattered with romantic and professional failure; melancholic, but quietly optimistic. With a string of EPS under their belt, an acclaimed live show, and ongoing collaborations in fashion, dance and theatre, Low Island follow in the lineage of Oxford artists; tenacious, free-spirited, and with a musical horizon of boundless possibility.