Limmy is the comic relief that techno never even knew it needed

Is Limmy the greatest bedroom techno producer of our time? Check out tracks such as his six-minute take on the theme from the Fry’s Turkish Delight commercial, or his remixes of Ace Of Spades by Motörhead and Africa by Toto, or one of his topless late night Ableton Live sessions, and you’ll fast realise that the answer is… probably not. But he’s definitely the funniest.

Real name Brian Limond, the Glaswegian web developer turned cult comedian, actor, writer, musician and social media addict – 74.4 thousand tweets and counting at time of writing – is famed for a lot of things. A swearing xylophone app, a BBC Scotland sketch show that gave us the catchphrase “she’s turned the weans against us” and a whole load of thoroughly deranged Vines to name but a few.

A regular at iconic Glasgow clubbing mecca The Arches in his youth, Limmy’s an old-school techno lifer who’s been making tunes of his own on home computer software since the 1990s. References to clubbing, club culture and dance music pop up time and again throughout his comedy. Be it in the form of his fairly self-explanatorily titled original Eccies, his appearance in a video for Glaswegian techno heavyweights Slam’s single This World or a viral sketch popularly known as “raving dad,” depicting an aged father in a suit apparently heavily under the influence of something, dancing madly while his panicked son attempts to calm him down before he suffers a heart attack (“ah miss yer ma son… ah’m comin’ tae get ye hen,” cries dad, seemingly content with his fate).

Limmy’s an old-school techno lifer who’s been making tunes of his own on home computer software since the 1990s

Despite the fact that his work often ranges into very dark places, BBC Scotland boldly saw fit to commission Limmy again recently for a one-off half-hour special titled Limmy’s Homemade Show. It’s another dose of distinctly Scottish surrealism, which quite apart from being perplexing and hilarious in about equal measure, serves as a useful reminder as to how his DIY comedic idiom has its own strong sonic as well as visual aesthetic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIWxgGrVaAQ

It goes beyond easy laughs such as his chicken sample-crazed techno take on kids’ nursery rhyme One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (an extended version of which Limmy’s since posted to SoundCloud by popular demand). It’s there more subtly in the by-turns dreamy and doomy synth drones and burbles that bubble away in the background of a sequence about how Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow is a great place to be when the bomb drops because there’s a display full of swords which can be plundered to defend against post-apocalyptic cannibals. Or the bit when he’s plucking the radiator in his hallway like he’s a busker playing some kind of electronic harp, as passers-by – all played by himself – toss him compliments.

Much as he’s probably capable of it, it’s hard to imagine Limmy ever turning out a proper, straight-faced, floor-filling techno banger. Whenever his tunes come close to being genuinely good, he can’t seem to resist messing them up with a ridiculous vocal or an overcooked donk. But electronic dance music already has enough producers who take themselves seriously – often much too seriously. By affectionately taking the piss out of the clubbing world, with its pretentious remixes and gurning-faced wee small hours conversations (as expertly parodied in his Party Chat sketches), Limmy’s the comic relief techno never even knew it needed.

Limmy’s Homemade Show is on the BBC iPlayer until April 30; listen to some of Limmy’s techno tracks and remixes at soundcloud.com/limmy