Karenn

Blawan and Pariah's live and studio project Karenn first debuted its thundering kicks, shuffling percussion, and overdriven synths with the release of 2011's Untitled three-track EP before rounding out the decade with their playful, club-focused debut album Grapefruit Regret. The British duo had already made names for themselves individually with releases on labels such as Hessle Audio, R&S, Hinge Finger, and Clone, before joining forces to create Karenn. Bringing together a hardware-only set-up, the pair recorded a number of live improvisations that would form the basis of their debut Untitled EP that appeared in 2011. Fine-tuning a full live set over the next year, Karenn chose London's Fabric nightclub to unleash their improvisational live techno debut. A second untitled EP appeared just a few months later and once again captured their intense live sound for posterity. Over the next couple of years, Blawan and Pariah issued one more Karenn EP in 2014, while each focused on their own career, with Pariah delivering his debut album, Here from Where We Are, for Houndstooth in 2018 and Blawan setting up his own label, Ternesc, to release a number of EPs and his debut album, 2018's Wet Will Always Dry. In 2019, the pair returned to Blawan's Berlin studio to record a selection of new material, with the first results appearing on the EP Kind of Green. A few months later the duo dropped their debut album, the club-focused and unrelenting, techno-driven Grapefruit Regret. ~ Rich Wilson