Biography
-
Years Active
1996 – present (28 years)
-
Founded In
Leicester, England, United Kingdom
-
Members
- Antony Ryan
- Robin Saville
Isan (sometimes written isan or ISAN) is an English electronic music duo, the result of a chance meeting in Leicester in 1996 that brought together Robin Saville and Antony Ryan. Their sound is said to be influenced by artists such as Kraftwerk, neu!, Brian Eno and the dreamy, smart-pop aesthetic of the Cocteau Twins.
Early in their career, ISAN predominantly released on 7" vinyl through a variety of mini-labels, including Earworm, Bad Jazz and the trailblazing Wurlitzer Jukebox. They also dipped their toes into longer formats when they released a CD called "Beautronics" on the Tug Boat label in 1998.
ISAN found a home on the Morr Music label. Their debut for Morr, "Salamander," hit the streets in 1999, and was the third release from the fledgling Morr Music. "Salamander" is a collection of melody miniatures, expansive soundscapes tinged with warmth. “Salle d’Isan” and “Lucky Cat” followed, further demonstrating their expertise with rhythm and melody.
A collection of hard-to-find singles and compilation tracks, “Clockwork Menagerie” offers an overview of the duo’s musical obsessions, with sparse arrangements and distinct flavors.
“Meet Next Life” (2004) and, finally, “Plans Drawn in Pencil” (2006) contain more precise visions, dialing down complexity for the sake of clarity. ISAN experimented with darker tones in the latter album.
"We’ve realised that ISAN is about making difficult sounds easy to listen to," Saville has said.
Artist descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
