Musician and illustrator Murlo announces his debut visual exhibition

If there’s one thing in this life we here at It’s Nice That want people to refer to us as it’s “polymath.” Manchester-based Chris Pell, better known to clubbers up and down the country as Murlo, is, in our eyes at least, a polymath. Not content with releasing supremely danceable records on labels like Mixpack and Rinse, or hosting a much-loved show on NTS, Chris somehow manages to find the time to burrow deep into his own deeply detailed and lovingly crafted visual world.

After the success of last year’s audio-visual extravaganza at the ICA, Murlo will be working with Red Bull to host his first ever solo show of illustration work, in early September.

The project, called Biolife is, Red Bull says, “a study in nature, robots and mythology – what’s real and what’s not,” and promise us that the new work “joins a comprehensive visual archive tracing the evolution of Murlo’s artwork to date,” via flyers, record sleeves, and more.

Opening at Hackney’s Studio 9294 on September 6, the exhibition will be split into sections, including a visual timeline of Murlo’s work to date, an area where you can sit back and feast on a variety of animated pieces, and something that is being described as a “Coil Corner” a DIY-style space stuffed to the gills with “ephemera from Murlo’s own semi-fictional record label, Coil Records.”