Hero Baldwin Steps Forward As Tinlicker Enter A New Era With ‘Dreams Of The Machine’
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Tinlicker’s fourth album, ‘Dreams Of The Machine’, marks a defining shift. Released via Remember The Future and [PIAS], it is the Dutch outfit’s first LP as a live NL/UK trio, with Hero Baldwin stepping fully into the frame as an official member for 2026. As the band prepare for a major UK and EU tour spanning Berlin’s Astra, London’s Exhibition, Manchester’s Albert Hall and Amsterdam’s AFAS Live, the timing feels deliberate. The scale is bigger, but the emotional core remains intact.
For Hero, the move from long-term collaborator to recognised band member reflects a journey that has never been linear. From punk frontwoman in Brighton to songwriter and now a central voice within one of electronic music’s most respected live acts, she resists narrowing herself to one label.
“I usually keep it quite simple. I have a whole other life outside of music, running a company in the physical arts, so people are often surprised to learn I write and perform too. If I had to explain it to someone… I think I build things. Sometimes that’s a physical space, sometimes it’s a song. At the core, I’m trying to create environments where people can feel something. Music just happens to be the most intimate of those spaces.”
That instinct runs through ‘Dreams Of The Machine’, an album that questions the relationship between humanity and technology. The focus track ‘Choosing Life’ places Hero’s voice front and centre, rejecting “living in fear” against a backdrop of breakbeat percussion and low frequency tension. Her writing process begins inwards before expanding outward.
“Most of my songs begin as mini essays, almost like abstract diary entries. It’s a way of metabolising what’s going on around me. I’ll start with something personal, but by the time the song is finished, it rarely belongs just to me.”
Within Tinlicker’s world, that personal starting point meets production that often feels cinematic in scale.
“Sometimes I’ll hear a piece of production from the guys, and it already feels like emotional weather. It’s like stepping into a storm. In those moments, I’m just giving a voice to something that already exists in the music.”
Other times, the process reverses.
“Other times, I’ll bring something very exposed, and Jordi and Micha build a world around it that reveals layers I hadn’t even considered. They’re brilliant at expressing the complexity inside a single emotion.”
Having previously fronted bands in the traditional sense, Hero describes the trio dynamic as liberating rather than limiting.
“Oh, I definitely feel free. With Tinlicker, everything is more fluid. I don’t have to perform a personality. I just have to contribute honestly. It’s incredibly liberating to create in a space where the sum of the parts makes something bigger than any one person.”
That fluidity shapes how new material emerges.
“There’s usually a lot of laughter. Sometimes, frustrated silence. But when something clicks, the focus becomes very precise. We hone in on the parts we all instinctively react to.”
The album’s thematic exploration of machines and emotion mirrors a deeper conversation about sincerity in an increasingly digital space. For Hero, technique will never outrank truth.
“Technique matters, but truth matters more. If a line still makes you uncomfortable when you sing it, if it still takes you back to how you felt when you wrote it, that’s usually the one that counts.”
Her path into electronic music was not premeditated. It evolved through collaboration, yet she sees continuity between scenes.
“The punk and hardcore communities I came from aren’t that different from the dance world. Both are about gathering in a room with people who feel something intensely and holding space for that. Different tempo, same instinct.”
As Tinlicker’s audience grows and the rooms expand, Hero says the core dynamic has not shifted.
“The respect and working dynamic haven’t changed; that’s always been there. I’ve always felt genuinely part of that family. What’s changed is the scale. The rooms are bigger, the audience is wider, and there’s more admin. But creatively, if anything, we’ve become braver.”
With ‘Dreams Of The Machine’ now out and the tour set to unfold across the UK and Europe, Hero Baldwin’s role feels fully realised rather than newly assumed. Beyond the voice that fans recognise, she hopes listeners sense intention.
“Beyond the voice, I hope people understand that everything I do comes from care. There’s no cynicism in it. The music is a love letter, not just to the beautiful parts of life, but to the messy, confusing, painful ones too.”
As Tinlicker step into this next chapter as a trio, that care sits at the centre of the project. Bigger stages, wider audiences, but the same commitment to building spaces where people can feel something real.
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