“Screen Cleaner,” the first solo recording by the 1975‘s drummer, George Daniel, begins with a busy signal, which is fitting since, well, he’s been pretty busy with that band and other projects and hasn’t had much time to make his own music. The instrumental EDM song then kicks into gear with a jumpy, knee-bending beat and glitchy, guttural synths.
The album will be released on Daniel’s dh2 label, an electronic-minded imprint of the 1975’s Dirty Hit label. Earlier this month, Daniel—who’s known separately from the 1975 as a producer for his work with that band, Charli XCX, the Japanese House, and Caroline Polachek — hosted a dh2 launch party at Brixton’s Phonox, where the label’s Kelly Lee Owens, Oscar Farrell, TimFromTheHouse, and, of course, Daniel himself made appearances.
Daniel has also been teasing the music all summer, making special appearances at Glastonbury, New York, Ibiza, and London variously with Charli XCX and Jamie XX and probably other people with X’s for last names.
The artist announced the release on his Instagram with what looks like a catalogue number (dh20002) an ASCII smiley face for the letter “x” (sensing a theme here?) and @’s for TimFromTheHouse and Tove Lo. Charli XCX, who likely saw the “x” and figured she could double that in brat, replied in the comments: “Sexy, hot, 1 of a kind, legendary, talented, tall.”
Incidentally, Daniel and Charli are affianced so he may well end up with the XCX surname himself if he so wishes. See Charli’s “Talk Talk” Q.E.D. (and XCX).