Okay. I need you to understand something.
Two Welsh brothers named Tom and Ed Russell — who make electronic music as Overmono — got it into their heads that the best way to make a cymbal sound interesting was to put it in an oven. Not to melt it. Not to shape it. Just to bake it. Covered in coffee grounds, crisps, and vinegar. Like a potato. Like they were preparing a very aggressive snack.
And that’s not even the weirdest thing they did for this album.
Pure Devotion, Pure Chaos#
Overmono’s second album Pure Devotion came out yesterday (August 7) on XL Recordings, and it’s 40 minutes of some of the most physical, tactile electronic music you’ll hear this year. But the story behind it is the kind of thing that makes you want to shake every buttoned-up producer who’s ever said “I’ll just use the stock Ableton reverb.”
The Russells didn’t just sit in a studio tweaking knobs. They:
- Decamped to Iceland with two synths and one FX unit — deliberately limiting themselves
- Made two trips to the coastal mountains of Northern Spain to record
- Ran tape over magnets because why not
- Routed drum machines through a vintage train station announcement speaker from the 1930s
- Blew up speakers — on purpose
- Baked a cymbal covered in coffee, crisps, and vinegar, in the style of producer Sylvia Massy (the same woman who got Tool and System of a Down to make weird sounds by doing exactly this kind of unhinged stuff)
The guiding principle, in their own words: “The first approach with anything on the record was always: how can we achieve this in a physical way?”
graph LR
A[Idea for a sound] --> B{Can we make this physically?}
B -->|Yes| C[Bake it / break it / blow it up]
B -->|No| D[Fine, use the synth then]
C --> E[Record the chaos]
E --> F[Arrange into music]
The Accidental Hit#
My favorite detail on this album is the track “Adre” — which is Welsh for “homeward.” The Russells built it by overdriving a cheap Behringer FX unit until it malfunctioned. The reverse reverbs started collapsing in on themselves. Most producers would hear that, go “huh, that’s broken,” and move on.
They didn’t move on. They made it the centerpiece of the track.
The malfunctioning reverb became “Adre”’s most distinctive feature. The glitch wasn’t a bug — it was the sound. This is the kind of producer mindset that separates interesting music from professional wallpaper. When you stop asking “is this working right?” and start asking “does this sound like anything I’ve heard before?” you get Overmono. You get a malfunctioning $50 effects unit becoming the emotional heart of a song about going home.
The Tracks#
“Lockup” opens the album with a sample of Birmingham punk band Fast Relief’s “What a Waste” — which is a deep pull — layered over thumping kicks and filtered breakbeats. It’s pure Overmono: searing, immersive, and it grabs you in the first five seconds.
“Knight In Shining Prada” is the album’s emotional center. Poet John Joseph Holt delivers a voice note to his brother Thomas, who died by suicide in 2017, over a Justice-esque floor-filler. The voice note went through 83 iterations to get right. Eighty-three. “May this song remind people of loved ones they have lost,” Holt said. “If we play it loud enough, do you think they will hear us in heaven?”
“After the Rain” closes the album on a UK garage note that DJ Mag described as a “soft, restorative finale.” It blends two tracks by Norwegian duo Smerz into a release that sounds like the sun coming up over a warehouse party.
Why This Matters#
Pure Devotion lands at a moment when UK dance music is having a genuine moment. Bicep, Barry Can’t Swim, Two Shell — British electronic acts are selling out venues that bridge the gap between sweaty basement clubs and concert halls. Overmono sold out London’s Old Royal Naval College for an open-air show on release day. They’re playing Alexandra Palace. They headlined Glastonbury’s West Holts stage. These aren’t niche rave guys anymore — they’re a cultural draw.
But what I love about this album is how anti-optimized it is. Every decision was made in the direction of physicality, imperfection, and accident. They baked a cymbal. They blew up a speaker. They took a broken reverb and said “yes, that.” In an era where so much electronic music is polished to a mirror shine — quantized, tuned, compressed into submission — Overmono made an album that sounds like it could bruise you if you got close enough.
Go Listen#
The whole album is 40 minutes. Start with “Lockup” if you want the banger, “Knight In Shining Prada” if you want to feel something, and “Adre” if you want to hear what a broken FX unit sounds like when you treat it like a gift instead of a mistake.
And the next time you’re about to fix a glitch in your production — stop. Ask yourself: what if I just leaned into it instead?
You might accidentally make the best part of the song.