East India Youth | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Birth name | William Martin Doyle |
Also known as | East India Youth |
Born |
Bournemouth, Dorset United Kingdom |
29 January 1991
Genres |
Electronic, Synthpop, Ambient, Experimental, IDM |
Years active | 2012–2016 (as East India Youth), 2016-present (as William Doyle) |
Labels |
Stolen Recordings XL Recordings |
William Doyle (born 29 January 1991), formerly known by his stage name East India Youth, is an electronic musician originally from Bournemouth, England. His debut album, Total Strife Forever, was released by Stolen Recordings on 13 January 2014. It was nominated for the 2014 Barclaycard Mercury Music Prize Album of the Year award, as well as the Independent Album of the Year award at the 2014 AIM Independent Music Awards.
The name East India Youth derived from the East India Docks area in East London, where Doyle lived during the writing of Total Strife Forever, an album influenced by Tim Hecker, Brian Eno and Harold Budd. And the Youth part: "That's because this place was the start of something new for me; I was creatively reborn". The flat he shared was also colloquially known as the "youth hostel", owing to friends – and friends of friends – staying over on a regular basis. It's for this reason his first EP was titled Hostel. Doyle was previously lead singer of indie band Doyle and the Fourfathers.
On 27 January 2015, it was announced that Doyle had signed with XL Recordings and that his second album would be called Culture of Volume. The album was released on 6 April 2015; the name of the album comes from a fragment of verse from the poem "Monument" by Richard Holland.
On 19 February 2016, Doyle announced that he would be taking an indefinite hiatus from his East India Youth moniker. In a lengthy post published on his website, Doyle stated that it was time to take a break from the project and no more shows are planned for the foreseeable future.
Doyle continues to release music - now under his own name, including the 2016 ambient album the dream derealised. In early 2017 he supported Sohn on tour in the US and in UK/Europe.