BBC Sound of 2025: Barry Can't Swim is a new dance music superstar

Scottish shaper Barry Can't Swim is 1 of the caller superstars of creation music, his colourful and woozy grooves winning implicit packed crowds from Glastonbury to Coachella, and earning Brit Award and Mercury Prize nominations successful 2024.

Now, helium has started the caller twelvemonth with different accolade - aft coming 3rd connected the BBC's Sound of 2025 list.

It confirms him arsenic 1 of pop's breakout names, aft 5 years connected a dependable upward trajectory, gaining much fans, vulnerability and acclaim with each release.

When Barry Can't Swim enactment retired his archetypal azygous successful December 2019, it was the latest successful a drawstring of projects from Edinburgh-born instrumentalist Joshua Mainnie.

He didn't cognize this was the 1 that would instrumentality off. If helium had, helium mightiness person thought a spot harder astir the name.

"I've conscionable got a mate who's called Barry and helium can't swim," helium told BBC Radio 6 Music successful 2023.

"And erstwhile I chose the name, I truly wasn't anticipating it was going to go my full-fledged vocation and everyone was going to deliberation my name's Barry.

"There was truly nary much thought to it than that. And present I'm benignant of stuck with it."

Barry/Joshua has his eagle-eyed, cash-conscious gramps to convey for mounting him connected the way to a euphony career.

"I started playing soft erstwhile I was astir 10," helium told BBC Radio 1's Jack Saunders successful an interrogation revealing his spot connected the Sound of list.

"My granddad really saw an advert successful a insubstantial for a soft that was going for free, and helium picked it up and near it with my mum and dad, and they were similar 'we don't person abstraction for this'.

"And that was it. I conscionable started learning however to play."

After catching the euphony bug, helium formed bands successful his teens inspired by groups similar the Happy Mondays and Stone Roses, who fused indie and creation successful the Madchester country of the precocious 1980s and aboriginal 90s.

Those acts were "some of the archetypal radical to truly effort and make a hybrid of the euphony that I loved, which was 60s psychedelic stone with much modern physics music", helium says.

"And that's precisely what I was trying to bash - incorporated the much accepted signifier of songwriting and melody of 60s euphony with physics production.

"That makes it dependable a batch amended than it was, by the way. But that's what I was trying to do, astatine slightest for a bit."

Mainnie decided to dedicate himself to creation euphony aft discovering the nightclubs astir Edinburgh's Cowgate arsenic a student, portion studying euphony astatine Edinburgh Napier University.

"My earliest producing truly came from clubbing, really, and going retired and conscionable falling successful emotion with creation euphony that way. So it was a earthy progression from bands to physics music."

Barry Can't Swim's dependable is bright, euphoric and highly danceable, with hazy location rhythms, trance pianos and infectious vocal snippets combining successful songs that are intoxicating shots of sonic sunshine.

His debut medium When Will We Land? includes exotic-sounding samples of Galician people and Brazilian funk, arsenic good arsenic a signaling of his person Jack Loughrey aka SomeDeadBeat reciting a poem astatine 4am.

It was 1 of 12 albums shortlisted for the prestigious Mercury Prize, and Mainnie was nominated for champion creation enactment astatine the 2024 Brit Awards.

Live, his dependable is beefed retired by a drummer, 2nd synth subordinate and impermanent vocalists, portion 32-year-old Mainnie dances down his keyboard successful colourful shirts - occasionally emerging to propulsion shapes astatine the beforehand of the stage.

He drew a immense assemblage to the Park Stage astatine Glastonbury past summer, sold retired 3 nights astatine Brixton Academy successful November, and volition header a nighttime of the All Points East Festival successful eastbound London successful August.

He besides does DJ sets - but says it "kind of annoys" him erstwhile radical conscionable notation to him arsenic a DJ.

"I've been playing instruments for decades and was producing for 5 years earlier I adjacent touched a acceptable of decks," he told Rolling Stone.

Now, the 2 sides of his unrecorded show provender disconnected each other, helium told Radio 1's Saunders.

"When I'm DJ-ing a lot, I truly miss playing live. And erstwhile I'm playing live, I miss DJ-ing.

"Weirdly, it informs what I've been penning successful the reverse. Like, erstwhile I walk a batch of clip playing unrecorded with the band, I extremity up penning clubby euphony due to the fact that I agelong for it.

"And past vice versa - erstwhile I'm retired DJ-ing, I conscionable miss the much unrecorded elements of making music.

"So I consciousness similar I person a passionateness for some arsenic and mutually, and I deliberation that's wherefore it's been truthful casual to modulation from DJ-ing into - not conscionable a band, but the euphony that I marque lends itself good to unrecorded show of physics music. It inactive holds the basal principles of accepted songwriting, but with physics production."

Barry Can't Swim is portion of a caller question of intelligently feelgood creation euphony heroes alongside the likes of Sound of 2023 runner-up Fred Again, Sound of 2024 listee Peggy Gou and Sound of 2025 nominees Confidence Man.

Mainnie says "more leftfield" physics euphony similar his "definitely feels similar it's got a bigger assemblage than it's ever had".

"I don't truly cognize what's happened successful the past fewer years, but the euphony I was listening to, and immoderate of the artists that I was listening to a fewer years agone erstwhile I was going clubbing that were rather niche - present they're astir popular stars.

"And you're like, what's happened? But it's amazing. It's specified an astonishing happening for the scene."

Almost popular stars?

If Barry/Joshua hasn't reached that presumption already, helium surely volition successful 2025.

One enactment from the BBC Sound of 2025 apical 5 volition beryllium announced connected Radio 1 and BBC News each time this week, culminating with the victor connected Friday.