Description
2023, 12″ LP, Ninja Tune. Green vinyl.
Forest Swords (Matthew Barnes) is a beloved electronic artist, and his latest album Bolted will surely add to that credence. Though his earliest albums are bona fide modern classics, Barnes has since spent the past few years working as an in-demand composer and sound designer, writing music for ballet, film and video games. Now he returns to form: ‘Bolted’ was recorded over the past year in a warehouse factory space in Barnes’ home city of Liverpool. As tends to be the case with Ninja Tune’s roster of experimental electronic artists, we’re again reminded of the sound Barnes has established over the years as entirely his own; a deeply earthen dub come electronica, spanning mournful, resampled-and-sequenced calls into the night (‘Caged’), knockingly broken and ghostly schisms (‘Butterfly Effect’) and ‘scapes evoking sublime desert pilgrimages (‘The Low’). For those hoping to hear Ninja Tune return to their atmospheric side in the tradition of Lone or Amon Tobin, this is your record. – Juno
