Bring Me The Horizon frontman Oli Sykes has collaborated with experimental Russian audio-visual group, IC3PEAK, on their latest track “VAMPIR” (IC3PEAK’s first release this year). The track was released earlier this week and has been described by NME as showing “vocalist Nastya Kreslina and Oli Sykes singing in both Russian and English over glitching synths“.
However, Sykes’ collaboration with the duo (made up of singer Nastya Kreslina and producer Nikolay Kostylev) is hardly a surprise, what with all the collaborations he’s been making in the past year. Other examples include emo-pop artist Daine, with whom Sykes made the track “Salt”, and American DJ trio Cheat Codes, with whom Sykes made the track “Dummy”.
Sykes seems to be finding his niche by working with like-minded artists, with Daine having this to say on the collaboration: “I feel like me and Oli have a similar vision for the way we see emo music evolving. We’re both experimental and progressive in our music. Even with people saying, ‘this isn’t heavy’ or ‘this is pop garbage’, we both have a clear vision of where to go.“
Despite all of this work, Sykes still managed to give fellow artist Tom Morello a helping hand on his album The Atlas Underground Fire, with his own outfit Bring Me The Horizon contributing to the track “Let’s Get the Party Started“. Tom Morello said of their help that “I think that Bring Me The Horizon are just one of the great bands of here and now. I know that they work in a lot of different worlds, but on this album with so much diversity I love the fact I have a collaborator to represent unapologetic metal. Oli Sykes isn’t afraid to scream his lungs out, and the rest of the band aren’t afraid to embrace a powerdriving riff to create a mosh that’s off-the-scale silly.“
It’s a marvel that the band manage to find time for all of this, especially considering that at one point they even intended on releasing four records within a 12 month period (something that keyboardist Jordan Fish now refers to as “absolute fantasy”). However, at the moment we’ll have to make do with the release of their upcoming EP, which Jordan Fish describes as “more influenced by emo and screamo“ than their previous release, Post Human: Survival Horror.
As they work on this wealth of material, it seems to be paying off, with the band having been announced earlier this week as headliners in next years’ Reading & Leeds festivals, one of the most prestigious festivals in Britain (you can read more about this here). For those interested, tickets went on sale yesterday, details of which can be found here.
