Introducing Our BOTW: Barbarossa

Barbarossa – namesake of James Mathé – has been releasing his own exquisite collection of songs since 2006, and we can’t quite understand why more people don’t love him. This is why he’s our BOTW – we want to scream about his brilliant talent from the rooftops for all of our readers to hear. His first EP, Sea Like Blood, is a collection of warm, intimate confessionals; this was followed by the full-length Chemical Campfires, which was picked up by television both in the US and UK for various syncs, and received loads of accolades from the music press (it was Album Of The Week at Rough Trade).

Mathé’s Butterfly Plague EP, which was released in June, moves into more electronic territory but maintains Barbarossa’s original romance and delicacy. We imagine that’s a direction in which he’ll continue moving when he releases his second album Bloodlines later this year. For now, listen to a couple of tracks from the latest release below and check out our exclusive premiere of his video for ‘Battles’ that we featured last week.