The Stool Pigeon music newspaper

It’s, a trek and a half from Prestatyn in North Wales to Berlin, but it’s a journey made by big-hearted electronic crooner, David Bozzwell. As vocalist with the multi-tentacled All Seeing I, he’s already had a fumble with pop stardom. Now he’s emerging for round two.

This time he’s at the helm of Sheffield’s electro poppers Hiem, a band ridiculous enough to arrive at a hometown show last year in a tank. By night he’s a techno producer who’s beamed squelching acid from the ex-spoon factory where he tinkers.

Armed with a voice that, he says, “is so high pitched people think I’m a bird,” and Romany roots (his first performance was with a ukulele, while great uncle Lias knew how to twiddle a fiddle), Bozz’s initial digital dalliances came through a chance meeting with Sheffield luminaries, Parrot and Dean Honer.

“I started singing on stuff I did for them for Bush Records in Brighton, which was the biggest techno label around at the time,” he explains. “I told me mum and she told all me friends I was making television at the Bush Factory.”

In Bozz’s own words, Hiem has been a “bit of a slog”. He’s been trying to make sense of things since the collapse of All Seeing I. First 7” ‘Chelsea’ emerged in 2004, but Bozz has been balancing his desire to go interstellar with the weary knowledge of the misery the music biz can bring.

“They have a habit of throwing bands at the wall and hoping something will stick,” he says. “If the NME doesn’t hype it, you get spat out the other end. We didn’t want it ’cos we’re not the fucking Kooks. Even though fellow Hiemer Nick does have a haircut.”

With debut full lengther featuring Roots Manuva, The Long Blondes’ Kate Jackson, Phil Oakey, he may not have a choice over embracing the main stage this time round, despite a lull last summer.

“I was having a shit time in Sheffield,” Bozz continues. “I felt taken for granted.”

Fast forward to now: his album’s ready and a glut of remixers have been queuing up to get their mitts on his work - Prins Thomas, Konrad Black and Dirk Leyer.

“Our tracks have been hits on dancefloors from the Rex Club in Paris to Watergate in Berlin. It’s such a buzz when your mate sends you a text at five in the morning from Tokyo saying, ‘They’ve just played Matthew Johnson’s remix of ‘She’s The One’ and they’re all going bonkers.’”

Keen to not get bitten twice, 2008 should be the year Bozzwell rules both the clubscene and popscene.