Component #4

Component#4 is Mike Rowley. Deep bass lines, driving beats and synthesisers blend with acoustic instruments such as piano, guitar and vocals, mixing electronica, post-dubstep, pop and experimental hip-hop into an evolving and hard to pinpoint eclectic sound. Each release by Component#4 is built around a concept of a particular time and place with often character led themes, part fictional and part biographical. The ‘Barbed Wire Sunday’ EP was influenced by travels to Berlin, immersion in its Cold War history and the similarities Rowley identified between the German capitol and in the post-industrial, post-Thatcher Black Country which he grew up in. The album ‘Into Memory’ deals directly with that upbringing, the decaying factories, vandalised bus shelters and litter-strewn canals which formed the landscape of his childhood as well as various significant characters from his past. The forthcoming EP ‘A Sentence’, draws on the claustrophobic, often violent, manipulative experiences Rowley observed during his four-year employment in a British prison; exploring the physical and emotional journey of a young man serving a relatively short sentence due to a rather serious drink driving offence.