PREMIERE: Joshua Burnside and producer Mount Palomar pair folk with electronica on 'Simmer'

The beautiful vocals of Down singer-songwriter Joshua Burnside have been put to entrancing dance music by pioneering Belfast LGBTQ producer Mount Palomar.

Mount Palomar's career path hasn't been straightforward, you could say. In early 2013, he travelled to XL Recordings studios in London. In an attempt to get signed he created an art installation outside their office at 5am and returned later that morning to see staff outside taking photos. He left and cried at the bottom of the street, the loss of his brother leaving him utterly emotionally exhausted.

"I thought that was it," he says. "I thought I couldn't do it anymore, that I was broken, but the devastating loss of Conor eventually became the impetus for what would become Mount Palomar."

Since then, the Northern Irish producer has been quietly plugging away within Belfast’s subterranean circuit, delivering conceptual electro, techno and club through devastatingly beautiful analog synth live sets. In 2019, the talent performed a live Boiler Room set at AVA Festival, had a headline slot in Berghain at Pride, played Panorama Bar & Lab.Oratory, shared club line-ups with Or:la & Objekt and released two EPs.

“Berghain was my second ever gig”, he says. "It’s only now on reflection I realise how special that was. It defined my musical journey and can’t overstate how profound it was to play in Berghain as a gay guy who came out so late. Other mates how have gone in there and said its complete escapism, and it is, but from a gay guys perspective there’s an added level to it. When I went to Lab there was a sense of complete freedom that was so far removed from what I grew up with.”

The upcoming new EP Brace For Impact is the return of Mount Palomar. The project's highlight and peak eyebrow-raiser is without a doubt the collaboration with critically acclaimed folk singer-songwriter Joshua Burnside on ‘Simmer’.

Co. Down musician Burnside rose to fame after the release of 2013's EP If You're Goin' That Way. He's since released his 2017 debut album EPHRATA, 2018 EP All Round the Light Said, stunning sophomore album Into The Depths of Hell and EP War on Everything in 2020 and a collaborative EP with Lemoncello's Laura Quirke, titled In the Half-Light.

The brooding cut of indie-electronica eerily gives off a Celtic-ancestral vibe. An unexpected link-up as the worlds of folk and electronic music blend to stunning effect.

Being one of the only live acts to play Berghain, Lab.Oratory and Panorama Bar in the same year in no small feat, and the hotly tipped artist is ready to deliver on the same euphoric highs and left-turns that had the dance music world so captivated in the first place.

Listen to 'Simmer' below.