Maps

• Genre: Noise Pop

About

When he began making beautiful music in his bedroom, James Chapman was a teenager in Northamptonshire, England, crafting dreamy, atmospheric electro-pop under the name Short Break Operator and recording it straight to his four-track -- without the help of a computer. After some increasingly popular gigs around town, an upgrade to a 16-track and a few critically acclaimed EPs (including Start Something, which he sold out of), Chapman had changed his one-man band's name to Maps and had become the subject of some serious buzz among fans and industry types alike, most of whom were calling Maps the next My Bloody Valentine and hotly anticipating Maps' debut. We Can Create, the resulting full-length, took Chapman about four years of locking himself in said bedroom, but playing the hermit ultimately paid off: Mute Records released the album in 2007 to the tune of critical cheers in the U.K. and U.S., and Chapman, now with a proper band in tow (but still sans laptop), headed out on tour.

- Rachel Devitt