Joy (Anonymous)

With collaborations with everyone from Fred again.. to Skrillex and Eliza Rose, London dance duo Joy Anonymous are set to take their inimitable sound from the banks of the Thames to the world with brand new album ‘Cult Classics’.

The pair, made up of childhood friends Henry Counsell and Louis Curran, came to widespread attention during the covid pandemic with a series of guerilla gigs on London’s Southbank and now gear up to release second album ‘Cult Classics’, a euphoric joyride through their formative influences from French filter house, UK garage and bass music to pop and r’n’b.

The duo wear their influences on their sleeve but find ways to channel these influences into something truly original. A recent run of edits has seen them rework Beach Boys “God Only Knows" and Kendrick Lamar to stunning effect. These original edits have gained support across BBC Radio and furthered Joy’s reputation as one of dance music’s hottest prospects; the duo were recently named as one of Radio 1’s ‘Future Dance Stars’ of 2023.

Throughout 2022, the duo took their sound across stages around the globe, performing with B2B with Romy and supporting Fred Again… Alongside that they still had the time to pop up in unexpected places. An impromptu performance with Four Tet in a van on the streets of New York City exploded across the internet, becoming one of the hottest dance music moments of the year. It has given them another level of momentum to power into their new album, Cult Classics.

“We wanted to do an album that was a shout out to all the different sounds that have inspired us,” says Henry. “We were really inspired by people like Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx who built a scene around them and made these amazing pop records that were really out there.”

If debut album ‘Human Again’ was a snapshot of a moment in time, then ‘Cult Classics’ is about building on that moment and taking their sound to the world. Recorded in London, the duo recreated the impromptu and off the cuff nature of the Southbank shows, and created an open-house environment for the recording of ‘Cult Classics’ with collaborators including Ross From Friends, The Blessed Madonna and long-term friend and collaborator Fred again.. all dropping by to add their own unique flavours to the album. It’s the sound of the band’s world opening up again and them revelling in the joy that brings. The result is a jubilant tour de force which cements Joy Anonymous’ position at the centre of a thriving moment in UK dance music.

“We’d create this amazing collaborative environment in the house,” says Louis. “And friends would come by with people we’d never even met before and they’d end up on the album. The recording was very off the cuff and then we’d go over everything the next day, working hard to knock it all into shape.”

Friends since sixth form, the duo have been working on music together since the early 2010’s, when Louis was finding success as a DJ and Henry was performing as Count Counsellor. Throwing parties together in London and starting the label From Concentrate Music, the pair eventually ended up pressing a slinky, groove-filled bootleg of a Celine Dion track they had worked on in 2018.

“We took it into Phonica and thankfully the manager took all of the copies from us,” says Louis. “Then bizarrely, a few months later we got a call from Switch who told us he’d been trying to find out who had made the track for months.” Impressed by their efforts, the Major Lazer co-founder encouraged the pair to visit him in Jamaica and hatched a plan to travel the world together recording new music. However the Covid 19 pandemic soon scuppered their plans.

Not to be deterred, during the pandemic the pair began hosting geurilla gigs on London’s South Bank, beginning by performing to the odd passerby who had stopped to watch during their daily exercise, but quickly growing into crowds of a few hundred as word began to spread.

You can hear the joyful spontaneity of their Southbank shows in their 2021 debut album ‘Human Again’, a record that won fans in radio DJs Clara Amfo, Toddla T and Jess Iszatt, as well as their collaboration with Everyone I Know, post-lockdown anthem ‘Just For The Times’ which currently sits on over five million streams on Spotify.

Now, the pair who took their name from supportive visits to Alcoholic Anonymous meetings with struggling friends (“I went and felt ‘wow this is a beautiful place where people are sharing and expressing themselves’, despite people’s perceptions of it being shrouded in darkness,” says Henry) set their sights on taking their sound and live show from the banks of the Thames to the biggest stages around the globe - watch the joy spread further.