Lovetempo: Mattie Safer on Disco, Desire, and Drifting Hearts

Sometimes the quantum physics of the world we inhabit catches us off guard. One such moment arrived when Lovetempo’s Instagram profile, whispering “Lonelyhearts Disco,” slid into view just as we were assembling the first issue of the paper you’re now holding. Who was Lovetempo — and has serendipity ever announced itself with greater theatrical flair? Cynics might mutter that it was merely the algorithm at work (hush — believe in a little magic, why don’t you?). But readers of this paper will surely share our conviction that something more was afoot. For who else could be hiding behind that suggestive bio but Mattie Safer — ex–member of The Rapture, current Poolside bassist, now Lovetempo lover — in short, the perfect poster child for our debut issue.

If anything, Safer’s story has long been one of foreshadowing. The Rapture’s first hit, “House of Jealous Lovers” (2003), predicted the band’s fate with almost novelistic precision: Its jagged energy mirrored the tension Luke Jenner would later understand as every member being a threat to his genius. The dance-punk band, whose early-’00s ascent felt like a cultural weather system in its own right, burned bright, fractured messily, and finally collapsed beneath Jenner’s ego. (The recent “reunion” tour, in name only, featured Jenner and an assortment of hired hands.)

It has been a long road — several lifetimes, really — since Safer first took the stage with The Rapture. He looks back with a quiet awe: an experience beyond anything he imagined, yet one he ultimately had to leave behind.

“Leaving was tough,” he admits, “but it had run its creative course for me.” What followed was a spell in the wilderness: a solo deal on a mismanaged label, false starts, and the quiet fear that music might no longer be his life. Then Poolside arrived like a lifeline. Playing bass with them restored the rhythm, the spark, and with it the confidence to finally start making the music he had always dreamed of. A formal jazz education lies beneath Lovetempo’s lustrous surface. The harmonies, naturally, but also the discipline: learning to value spontaneity, to trust the interplay of rhythm, to understand that musical form is often a question of theme and variation, not just verse and chorus. You hear it in the architecture of a Lovetempo track: spacious, deliberate, built on the kind of restraint that makes every shift memorable.

But beneath the compositional craft lies something more fragile. Lovetempo was born in the fallout of heartbreak, a period marked by deception, betrayal, and the all-too-human tendency to fall for exactly the people one shouldn’t.

“I love easily and openly,” he says, with a mixture of pride and ruefulness. Music has long been Safer’s method of metabolising pain, transforming it into something warm, bright, and danceable. “Lonelyhearts Disco,” indeed captures the mood: dance music with a melancholic romanticism woven through it, the kind that understands you can, in fact, dance the pain away.

Even the project’s name arrived with a sense of inevitability. Early in the pandemic fever dream, stuck indoors and sharing music in bed with a former flame, he found himself listening to Quando Quango’s “Love Tempo.” It struck him instantly as the perfect title — a rare moment where naming came easily, without months of lists or second-guessing. Lovetempo is, as he puts it, about love and rhythm: the two forces that have pulled him through.

The dance world has taken notice. Support from Gilles Peterson, Folamour, Kerri Chandler, and Yuksek has brought a warm, almost surreal kind of validation.

“To be recognised by musical giants who’ve shaped the culture is a thrill that never really fades,” he says. “It brings a warm feeling because I know they are hearing it within the longer history of the music. To feel seen and appreciated like that is wonderful.”

The emotional core of Live or Die by Love, his recent EP, is unmistakable. Written during a period of profound sadness, the title became a kind of self-talk — a reminder to lean into vulnerability rather than retreat from it.

“The idea was that in good times or bad, I would choose love and choose openness over closing myself off. Romantic love, love for others, and love for myself will always be core for me, no matter what hardships I face.”

For all its emotional depth, Lovetempo is anything but solemn. Safer’s creativity thrives on the small rituals of everyday life — cycling through Brooklyn, pausing to catch a melody or bass line as it surfaces unbidden. There’s a tenderness in the image, but also a sly, conspiratorial energy: a man pedalling through the city, plucking melodies from the air, shaping them into music that insists on being heard, danced to, and remembered.

And there is more to come. His debut album, There Is a Light, arrives in April 2026, preceded by a string of singles, including the warmly received “Wanna Be With You.” London may yet get its own Lonelyhearts Disco — and we’d love to host a Lovetempo × Lonely Hearts Club night. Nothing’s confirmed, but as he says, to our delight “Let’s throw a party!”

Fans in London can pick up his vinyl releases — Live or Die by Love, But I Do, and soon the new album — at Phonica. Safer speaks of the Soho institution with genuine affection: Trips there in his twenties were a highlight of his visits and a cornerstone of his early dance music education. He’s looking forward to returning.

And his own love life? We asked, half in jest, if bands are like relationships — propose, have a fling, or ghost eventually — where does he stand.

“Me and Lovetempo,” he says, “are partners and lovers for life.”

That devotion now extends to the very lucky lady Safer calls his own. When we offered him some real estate in our personals, he gushed, “Very happily boo’d up. No ad necessary.”

It is, in its way, a small act of bravado: a man who has weathered the chaos, learned from the misfires, and emerged utterly confident in the love he gives and takes. Singles to chase, nights to surrender to, an album to play on loop — Safer doesn’t just make music; he issues a summons. Consider yourself invited, because in Lovetempo’s world, missing the party is not an option.

Tune in to the exclusive Lovetempo × The Lonely Hearts Club playlist curated by Mattie.

This article originally appeared in Issue 01, the debut issue of The Lonely Hearts Club, published in January 2026. It was published online on March 12, 2026.