Initially influenced by the likes of experimental hip-hop artists such as cLOUDDEAD and Odd Nosdam, Rob McAndrews had already began producing prior to being invited to play guitar as a touring musician for childhood friend James Blake. Quick to find his own unique sound palette, McAndrews’ brooding debut album For Years (2013) had an analgesic yet idiosyncratic quality, rich with discordant acoustic guitars and edgy hip-hop beats.
Fast-forward eight years and little had been heard from McAndrews, save for a few singles and EPs, and 2021’s otherworldly acoustic-electronic LP And a Bit of Hope. However, Airhead’s third LP Lightness charts a distinctive yet no less inventive course. Studying the techniques of numerous American jazz guitar greats, McAndrews discovers ingenious ways to process the instrument, combining tightly packed chord fragments with microscopic beats and deep sub-bass.
Your previous LP And a Bit of Hope and much of your early work blends guitars with electronics. Was guitar therefore your initial instrument?
“I started learning piano when I was five because my mum was training to become a piano teacher. Soon after, I saw someone playing cello and became enamoured with the sound of that, so I began playing cello from around seven years old, and it became my main instrument after I stopped with the piano a few years after. Then I got an electric and an acoustic guitar, became obsessed with early folk music and spent a lot of time copying the fingerpicking styles of people like Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Blake and Reverend Gary Davis.”
