{"title":"Forest Swords","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"zen243","title":"Forest Swords - Compassion","description":"\u003cp\u003eForest Swords, aka acclaimed Merseyside-based producer Matthew Barnes, returns with his eagerly anticipated new full-length record.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Compassion\" engages with an uncertain world we’re experiencing, distilling it into a unique sound territory: Barnes' exploration of the mid-point between ecstasy and frustration, artificial and human feels timely and affecting. The result is an assured, compelling body of work, tying together the ancient and future: weaving swathes of buzzing digital textures, field recordings, clattering beats and distorted jazz sax with fizzing orchestral arrangements. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Like many, with all that's been going on since I started making the record, I've struggled to see any kind of light at the end of the tunnel,\" says Barnes, \"so I realised there's some sort of power in trying to create our own instead. I'm inspired by the ways we're communicating now, for better or worse, and thinking about new channels we can distribute ideas. The idea of looking for flexible future ways of expression and language, that bends to our needs quicker, really excites me”. Barnes launched the record with a unique experiment in new ways to disseminate music, personally sending album tracks through messaging app WhatsApp to anyone who asked.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe album shifts from 'The Highest Flood's skeletal bounce to 'Panic's claustrophobic paranoia; the rapturous hyperballad 'Arms Out' to the windswept and cinematic ‘Knife Edge’, navigating through the orchestral glitch of 'War It' to decaying jazz thump of ‘Raw Language’. The album is equal parts disorienting and immersive, balancing bold sweeping gestures and crumbling textures; tracks seemingly disintegrating and reassembling at points across the album. Blending both digital and specially recorded brass, strings and vocals, Barnes's processing never truly makes it clear what's new or old, sampled or unique, constantly blurring and toying with the line between digital and acoustic. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere will also be a variety of multidisciplinary projects set to run through his Dense Truth umbrella over the coming year: collaborations across dance, performance, film and music. Previous Forest Swords projects include devising and scoring contemporary dance piece ‘Shrine’, composing for the ‘Assassin’s Creed’ video game, collaborating with Massive Attack on their new music, and scoring the first movie made entirely with drones – 'In The Robot Skies’ – which debuted at the BFI London Film Festival.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCentral to this enthralling world is “Compassion\", an album that's as weighty as it is vulnerable, sculpting the most striking parts of his previous work into something that feels urgent and necessary, and cementing Barnes as one of the UK's most significant electronic artists and composers.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ninjatune","offers":[{"title":"Limited LP","offer_id":44934145409183,"sku":"ZEN243X","price":29.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"LP","offer_id":44934145441951,"sku":"ZEN243","price":29.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":44934145474719,"sku":"ZENCD243","price":13.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Repress","offer_id":44934145507487,"sku":"ZEN243S","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0493\/8563\/5999\/products\/compassion-main.jpg?v=1736246991"},{"product_id":"zendnl297","title":"Forest Swords - Bolted","description":"\u003cp\u003eForest Swords (aka electronic producer\/composer Matthew Barnes) returns with a new album ‘Bolted’. Having spent the past few years working as an in-demand composer and sound designer – writing music for ballet, film and video games – 'Bolted' was recorded over the past year in a warehouse factory space in Barnes’ home city of Liverpool. Across its 11 tracks he dives deeper into his unique sonic vocabulary to weave together a set of tracks that sounds equally muscular and bleak, haunting and euphoric.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs ever in his music, melancholy and euphoria, monochrome and colour, past and future all feel ambiguous. Emotions shift from moment to moment, differences between digital and acoustic instruments more smeared than ever: a queering of time, space and sonics that feels equally playful and totally vital. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlongside the announcement comes “The Low”, a moody, metallic trip hop single lifted from the album. Speaking on the track Barnes comments, \"’The Low’ was based on a beat I’d originally intended for Yoko Ono, and features elements I made both at the start and end of the album, so ties together a lot of the sounds and emotions I was exploring during the writing process. The accompanying video directed with Sam Wiehl expands on some of my artwork and visual world that accompanies the record”.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The Low” arrives shortly after the release of the “Butterfly Effect” single - part industrial electronica, part greyscale pop, shifting Forest Swords' world deeper into murkier, more paranoid territory, with a previously-unheard vocal sample by the legendary singer-songwriter Neneh Cherry. Upon its release the single received support from the likes of Pitchfork, FADER, DJ Mag, Stereogum, Clash, Line of Best Fit, Dork and more. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile his previous album – the acclaimed 'Compassion' released in 2017 – saw Barnes toy with widescreen technicolour, the world of ‘Bolted’ is tightly wound, taught, with a sense of aching urgency like never before. Fizzing deconstructed synths, heavily distorted mallets and marimbas bounce off clattering beats and foggy vocals, all balanced out with lightly dancing woodwind instruments; a layer of dust covering the surface of every track. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eElsewhere on ‘Bolted’ we hear 'Munitions' chugging industrial throb kick off the record, through to 'End's melancholy nostalgia, before plunging back into the psychedelic pounding of urgent closer 'Line Gone Cold', a rumination on grief with a signoff from the late Lee Scratch Perry.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDefiant, desolate, and darkly beautiful: 'Bolted' cements Forest Swords as one of the most remarkable and singular voices working in electronic music. The album will be released on the 20th October on Ninja Tune. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ninjatune","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":44934154191007,"sku":"ZEN297","price":29.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Deluxe","offer_id":44934154223775,"sku":"ZEN297X","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":44934154256543,"sku":"ZENCD297","price":13.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":44934154289311,"sku":"ZENCAS297","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0493\/8563\/5999\/products\/bolted-main.jpg?v=1736246925"}],"url":"https:\/\/merch.ninjatune.net\/collections\/forest-swords.oembed","provider":"Ninja Tune","version":"1.0","type":"link"}