Bicep - Isles (3LP) - Orange Vinyl

Some records feel like they were built for the long walk home after a show. Isles is one of those. Bicep, the Belfast duo of Andrew Ferguson and Matthew McBriar, released their second album on January 22, 2021 through Ninja Tune, and it landed right when dance floors were quiet. That timing shaped everything. These tracks glow with club DNA, but they were mixed to bloom on home speakers, headphones, and late nights. You can hear restraint, patience, and a kind of tension that makes the drops feel earned rather than engineered.

Atlas sets the tone. It opens with a foggy vocal loop and a steady roll of percussion, then pulls the camera back, slowly revealing a huge, padded kick and synths that ripple like light under water. It is the way Bicep build that gets you. They love contrast, soft against hard, human samples against clean drum programming. Cazenove follows with glassy pads and clipped rhythms that feel close to the chest, like you are standing beside the booth while they work the faders.

Apricots is the album’s beating heart, and it deserved every bit of attention it got. The duo weave together choral fragments and a Malawian field recording into a melody that feels both ancient and new. There is no cheap nostalgia here. The vocal sits inside the groove like a memory you cannot place, and when the bass swells, the room seems to bend. Critics lined up behind it for a reason, and it ended up on a lot of year end lists. It is also the track that made casual listeners start hunting for Bicep vinyl, which is how you still see Isles vinyl vanishing from the new-release bins before lunch at my local Melbourne record store.

Clara La San’s voice brings a different shade to the record. Saku threads her icy softness through stepping drums and feathery synth lines, and the result is gorgeous. She turns up again on X, which plays like a mirror image, sharper and more direct. Lido and Rever push the tempo and texture. Sundial lifts the mood with bright, clipped vocals and a nimble rhythm that begs for open windows. Fir and Hawk close the loop, leaning into the duo’s love of long, dissolving melodies that hang in the air after the beat drops away. The sequencing is careful. Nothing feels rushed. You can tell they worked these ideas for years, testing them in DJ sets, then polishing them in their London studio until the edges sat just right.

Isles did real numbers too. It reached number two on the UK Albums Chart and topped the UK Dance Albums Chart, a neat achievement for music that is this moody and detailed. The reviews were strong across the board, with broadsheets and club magazines agreeing for once that Bicep had leveled up from their already beloved debut. They also expanded the project quickly. A deluxe edition arrived in 2021 with extended cuts that stretch the album’s slow-burn ideas into the kind of long-form passages that make sense on stage. The pair have said these are the studio versions, and the live renditions go further. If you saw their later live shows, you know how huge Atlas or Apricots can get when the drums get teeth.

Part of the appeal is tactile. Even on streaming, Isles feels physical, but it truly settles in on a turntable. Ninja Tune’s pressings tend to be solid, and this one gives the low end the room it needs without smearing the highs. If you are trying to buy Bicep records online, be warned that certain variants come and go fast, but standard black copies do the job beautifully. Fans who collect Bicep albums on vinyl know the artwork looks clean in a sleeve flip, and this one is no exception. I have watched plenty of people browsing vinyl records Australia wide pause at that cover, flip it over, and decide in seconds.

What keeps me returning is how humane the record feels. Isles captures the ache of missing a room full of strangers and the joy of finding that feeling alone, lights low, volume high. It is careful music that still hits hard. If you are on the fence about grabbing Isles vinyl, imagine the opening swell of Atlas filling your living room, then picture Apricots rolling in behind it. That is the sale.