Faithless

Faithless are an outstanding band producing sophisticated and many faceted electronic music with profound and special lyrics. This London trio was formed in the midst of nineties by the extremely talented and eccentric personalities: producer Rollo Armstrong, multi-instrumentalist and DJ Sister Bliss and rapper Maxi Jazz. The latter two are the stage incarnation of Faithless, while the head and manager of the band, who, according to his own confessions, masters no instrument and hardly memorizes tunes. Maxi is the ideological leader, whose Buddhist beliefs have a material impact on the intellectual and complicated lyrics, so non-characteristic of a dance music band. Finally, Sister is responsible for the musical material of Faithless. These three regularly involve other performers to record their albums, including Rollo’s sister, the celebrated singer Dido.

Faithless released their first album, Reverence, in 1996. The mysterious house-like atmosphere with Maxi’s rap mantras appeared a revelation to dance floor residents, and a foundation to build on for scores of other groups. Although, music patterns of this album were lately applied by numerous performers, none of them managed to copy the sound and mood of the young English group. Faithless dared ignore the format limitations and genre canons, recording lengthy tracks with intricate structures to arrange elements of house, soul, hip-hop, and blues. It fitted perfectly the romantic and depressive lyrics written by Maxi. Such an experimental and audacious album required attentive listening and time to get used to. Thus, the audience accepted it with moderation and alertness. However, the release of remixes of its songs, aimed at a wider range of listeners, made it easier to understand the original album, eventually, running platinum in 22 countries. Having released the debut album, Faithless went touring and proved themselves as a hard working and outstanding group to make their live songs much different from their studio versions.

The second album by Faithless, named Sunday 8pm (1999), strengthened their leading position on the world dance music stage. It spawned such hits as God Is A DJ, and Take The Long Way Home. The musicians did not enclose themselves with dance music frames and presented to the listener a rich set of various and interesting tracks. The following album, Outrospective (2001), is considered the best one in the Faithless discography. It was made very expressive and melodic. Faithless kept on collecting awards and giving concerts in as many states and cities, as possible. The next studio work, No Roots (2004), was followed by speculations on the collapse of the band, which became pointless after the release of the Faithless hit collection in 2005. In a year, they delivered another studio album, To All New Arrivals, and went on a huge world tour named after its first single, Bombs. In 2006 the compilation of band’s works titled Renaissance: 3D was issued, and in 2009 the duo released the record Insomnia - The Best Of. The band’s new studio attempt entitled The Dance saw the light in 2010. That long play took the second line in the British chart, which turned out to be a great proof of listeners’ interest in Faithless’ creativity. With an enormous number of concerts given, Faithless have become the model of creativity and masterly performance.