Across just five years of recorded output, south London outsider-composer Klein has journeyed from oblique, downer electronica redolent of Burial to a unique and singular warping of classical tropes. Befitting an artist who has released music on both cutting-edge dance labels and legacy European classical imprints, ahead of a milestone show at London’s Barbican next week Klein is performing at a club space in a Salford industrial estate.
The first sounds you hear – under pulverising strobe lights – is the clattering club rhythms of Klein’s work performed by a lone percussionist hitting a large kick drum at the side of the stage. Reflecting Klein’s direction of travel, sounds that were once sampled are now far more likely to be organic; last year’s critically acclaimed album Harmattan had been composed for orchestra before the pandemic intervened.
