“Abe, a young band from Sheffield return home attempting to make the most of their time together…” The pretext of ‘Through with Love’ (the group’s first film) sums up their situation. They have been almost seasonal for 3 years, taking stock in their long time apart and coming back in the summer. It is now easier to work collaboratively from a distance but despite being a mostly ‘electronic’ act, Abe’s reference has stuck from their days in guitar-bass-n-drum bands and they flourish in direct contact with each other.

Abe’s process is a drama of art, highs and lows. They make it the long way round. Key to their sound is a balance of aesthetics from each member’s hard earned claim to the music. On a degraded atmosphere of loops and samples a theatrical chorus coos repetitively with positive emotion, tempered with stabs of keen villainous beats and chords. It’s dark and sweet. Clubbs Coldron’s voice gives the music its narrative cues, warbling with pangs of identity from Plato’s cave.

The band consistently adopts a live formation. It’s about communication. Turned in facing each other, multi-instrumentalist Oliver Rogers and singer both address the crowd somewhat obliquely. Between them Tom faces the audience direct, providing an active interface between audience and performers, something the group observe to be lacking in live electronic music: ”We once saw a guy get out his phone and check it while he was playing on stage!” exclaims Oliver.

They try to think in different ways. Without purposefully seeking out the weird and ironic they explore old and newly chartered grounds, reconstructing their multitudinous influences in their own context. They want to be sincere and interesting. It’s a fraught process but of course it all seems normal to them.