The story of a cult duet Zero 7 from England, which had a…

The creative union of two British sound engineers Henry Binns (Henry Binns) and Sam Hardaker (Sam Hardaker) called Zero 7 can be said to have shaped the image of European music in the first two decades of the 21st century.

Their musical thinking permeates the work of Pet Shop Boys, Radiohead, Lenny Kravitz, Sneaker Pimps and even Robert Plant. Singer Sia collaborates with Zero 7, each video of which collects at least 1 billion views (Guinness record). One can only dream of such an arrangement of stars. What, in fact, Binns and Hardaker are doing. Each of their work is done slowly, as if the musicians are in a state of permanent dreams. Since 2001, the duet has released only four LPs, and the last eleven years have occasionally spoiled us with only "peshki" (mini-albums, EPs).

The release in 2020 of the EP "Shadows" with Lou Stone on vocals has become one of the main events of the year in the field of alternative music.

The general opinion about the main genre in which they create Zero 7 is down tempo. Many will be repulsed by this wording. But their music is much deeper. Otherwise, they would not have earned themselves the fame of one of the coolest production duos of our time. Binns and Hardaker's music combines trip hop, electronica, acid jazz, ambient. This music is not for dance floors, but rather for cocktail parties and chill-out areas.

The pinnacle of Zero 7's creativity at the moment can be called the "Garden" LP, the penultimate full-length studio work of the duo in 2006. The album was co-authored by figures whose Wikipedia pages surpass the articles about the instigators themselves.

This is Jose Gonzalez, a successful Argentine-Swedish singer and musician. And the main star is Sia Furler, an Australian singer-songwriter whose music video featuring young dancer Maddy Ziegler's "Chandelier" has been viewed by more than 2.3 billion people. Zero 7 themselves cannot boast of such indicators, but they are geniuses of pure melodies and cosmic mood.

For this they are loved by musical magnitudes of the first order. When they turn to them for production or remixing services, they want to achieve a similar effect. And, for example, Radiohead received a remix from Binns and Hardaker, even before the appearance of Zero 7. But it was already released under this name, so the name of the duo was fixed.

After this, Zero 7 created quite a few interesting rewrites of world hits, but they were limited to more than that. For example, they wrote the song "Breathing" for ex-spice girl Emma Bunton.

In addition, members of Zero 7 expand their creative possibilities by creating side projects. In 2007, Binns and Hardaker formed a band called Ingrid Etos, which has been described as an instrumental project called Zero 7. In 2016, Henry Binns teamed up with musicians Beau Bruce and Jody Miliner on the Equador project. It seems that Binns and Hardaker are trying to embrace the immensity. What is interesting is that they succeed. You can see this in the playlist, in which we reflected the main milestones of the phenomenal duet's creativity.