Pendulum, the Aussie/British group that you have dreams about at night, just topped off 2015 with the biggest news we could have hoped for.
And yes, it will be live. @ultra
— Pendulum (@Pendulum) December 17, 2015
For those of you unaware, two members of Pendulum, Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen, split off to become Knife Party in 2011, leading to a lot of mixed feelings from Pendulum fans. On the one hand, Paul Harding and Ben Mount continue to play as Pendulum performing DJ sets across the world; on the other hand, the true musical genius behind the group is now wasting away his talents producing troll tracks like “PLUR Police.”
When Pendulum was in its heyday, no one could touch them. The 5-piece live band was one of the first to adopt live instrumentation at that level in electronic music, and it was closer at times to rock than EDM, especially with their second album, In Silico. Today, you can see a vast variety of artists employing live instrumentation in their sets, such as Beats Antique or Netsky.
And with the official announcement that Pendulum is reuniting for Ultra Music Festival 2016, all sorts of questions start swimming around. Will they finally work on that last album they were contracted for? If so, I wonder who might collaborate on it. And most importantly, will this lead to a tour? If so, will they hit all of the typical EDM fests or do a true stadium tour?
People were talking about how the returns of The Chemical Brothers, or The Prodigy, or even Ratatat this year would galvanize the electronic music industry – and they did, sort of. But Pendulum has that sort of instantly recognizable brand and appeal, and audience participation, that can really light a fire.
I was excited for 2016 before but now, I can barely contain myself.
