East India Youth - FUV Live - 2015

Nominated for a Mercury Prize in 2014 for his ambitious debut album, Total Strife Forever, East India Youth's William Doyle didn't initially set out to be a solo artist. Back in 2010 his band, Doyle and the Forefathers, was getting a fair bit of attention in Britain. But the young singer felt himself drifting from guitar-driven indie rock. On the side, Doyle was composing electronic music, inspired by Brian Eno and Steve Reich. That ancillary project received Doyle's full-time focus when his band broke up in 2012.

As East India Youth, the enterprising Doyle sent a demo to the editorial staff of the UK blog The Quietus. The editor-in-chief was so impressed that the publication actually set up its own record label just to release East India Youth's first EP, Hostel, in the winter of 2013. Fast forward a year later and East India Youth's album, Total Strife Forever (yes, a cheeky wordplay on Foals' album Total Life Forever) was released via Stolen Recordings to critical plaudits ... and eventually that astonishing Mercury Prize nomination this past September.

Doyle, who has toured with Wild Beasts and Owen Pallett, releases his second East India Youth album, Culture of Volume, in April on his new label, 4AD.  For his recent session for The Alternate Side and FUV, he looked back at the impact of Total Strife Forever, discussed his admiration for Brian Eno and David Bowie, and reflected on his starry Mercury Prize experience. Watch East India Youth in Studio A playing "Heaven, How Long" and "Looking For Someone" too.

[recorded: 11/17/14]