Get to know Giant Swan, the duo with riotous live sets and releases that match

A Giant Swan show is heavy and direct; there’s a physicality you won’t find at most live techno shows. The duo throw themselves behind every synth squeal, crashing snare and vocal wail with an energy often echoed by its audience. “We’re about what techno used to be about: losing yourself, not worrying about the snobby elements of dance music,” says Harry. “We’re trying to bring the fun back into it.”

Bristol-based best friends Robin Stewart and Harry Wright, both 26, create improvised, hour-long sessions that play out more like a DJ set than a ‘live band’ gig, the pair always prepared to change direction if “no-one’s feeling it”. And they’ve wheeled their eyebrow-raising set-up of Marshall amps, guitar pedals and synths into clubs like London’s Corsica Studios, Milan’s Macao, Tresor and Berghain’s Säule floor in Berlin to devastating effect.

Harry and Robin met while skate-boarding, aged 11, and began making music in experimental rock four-piece The Naturals shortly afterwards. In 2010 they started playing as a duo on the side, using the equipment they already had lying around with the band. This side-project slowly evolved into the rugged techno Giant Swan, who today draw influence as much from post-hardcore band The Blood Brothers as they do Surgeon & Regis’ ‘British Murder Boys’.

It was their friendships within Bristol’s burgeoning bass scene that really helped cement the group, though, with the Young Echo collective handing them their first show and Batu’s Timedance dropping last year’s brilliant ‘Celebrate The Last 30 Years Of Human Ego’ EP. “It was nice to have those people encourage us,” says Harry, “and show you can do weird, experimental dance music and still get some recognition.”

More recent releases have landed on the likes of Mannequin, Haunter and Whities, their records often striking a sharper, clearer sound than their live sets. But they still carry the same love for anarchic experimentation and dubbed-out, industrial techno. It’s the visceral energy that permeates both that marks Giant Swan out so distinctly. “And it’s fucking easy with the techno scene because it’s so conservative,” says Robin.

There’s a ‘fuck you’, punk attitude permeating absolutely everything Giant Swan do. But it’s a tag they’ve never actively cultivated. In fact, there’s a sense that they don’t care how anyone else views them. “I don’t need to prove myself to anyone else,” says Robin. “I just need to know that the guy I’m doing it with is into it.”

‘Whities 016’ EP is out now on Whities