berlioz Tickets

Though his tagline is meant to be taken with a pinch of salt, there’s certainly nothing salty about Berlioz’ artful blend of pastel-tinted house music and jazz-indebted innovation that’s transformed the fast-rising producer into the UK’s most-listened to jazz artist.

Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Jasper Attlee’s family relocated to the serene, rural outskirts of English coastal county Cornwall when he was just six months old, where the budding producer honed his unique sense of painting atmosphere in his music throughout his adolescence. Likely because art has played a major part in his musical make-up, citing impressionism as a fundamental philosophy in his own creative process. 

From a young age, Attlee wasn’t interested in pandering to his peers, instead immersing in John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme - which he claims was the first record he ever purchased - and French touch, a style of electronic music frequently associated with Daft Punk and Cassius. His first guise, Ted Jasper, soon came to fruition, releasing his debut EP Little Bit More on Fat Records in 2016. 

Several releases later and Attlee became disillusioned, despite achieving moderate notoriety and adoration from the likes of Worldwide FM and Mixmag. He needed a vector for his artistic inspiration that wasn’t too closely tied to his personality. “I wanted to create a new project that had its own identity distinct from me that I could put all my inspiration and all the art and creativity [into] and leave out a lot of the personal baggage,” he told Rolling Stone in 2024. Berlioz was born, and slowly but surely became Jasper’s primary focus. Thanks to Instagram and TikTok. 

His Berlioz moniker isn’t quite as pretentious as you’d perhaps assume - it’s borrowed from the mischievous kitten in Disney’s The Aristocats, not the 19th century French composer. But Attlee’s music under Berlioz evoked the improvisational energy of jazz and spontaneity of impressionist art he held dear, hence the Matisse connection. His 2023 EP jazz is for ordinary people became an almost-instant viral hit, with Attlee splicing his music with snippets from kitsch cultural touchstones like David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and Wes Anderson movies. His videos resonated, creating a surge in his streaming numbers. 

Attlee was swift to start work on his debut full-length record once he’d cultivated a community for his creativity. For open this wall, Berlioz was as much the creation of Attlee’s wife Jocelyn given the vast inspiration she offered the producer throughout its ideation and eventual recording. Remarkably self-released, open this wall justified the hype around Berlioz. 

Even more remarkably however, Attlee feels more comfortable at home with his wife listening to NTS Radio than being out-and-about entertaining the masses. But that’s surely all about to change with his headline show at Brixton Academy in the autumn of 2024, a signifier of Berlioz’ newfound popularity. Thankfully it won’t be a complete baptism of fire - Berlioz will be swooning crowds at the Repercussion event alongside Bonobo and Jungle for The Warehouse Project the month before.