Published
Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 16:42
- It's described as marking "a significant shift" for the UK artist, who's collaborated with a vocalist—Sue Tompkins—for the first time.
Russell Haswell will be back on Diagonal Records next month with a mini-album called Respondent.
Respondent represents what the label calls "a significant shift in direction for Haswell," and "a stepping stone to his next project, an album featuring a number of guests." For the first time in his career, the UK sound artist collaborated with a vocalist—Sue Tompkins, a Glasgow-based singer who was part of the now-defunct indie rock group Life Without Buildings, features on the mini-album's nearly ten minute-long track, "Special Long Version Demo."
Haswell's approach to the record was influenced by his experiences as a youth discovering music in the mid-'80s, during which time he found artists like Iannis Xenakis, Cabaret Voltaire and DAF, and labels like 4AD, Factory and Mute. (He also came to learn "that the adverts with the most interesting graphic design usually promised the most interesting music," as Diagonal puts it.) "What I'm trying to do," he says, "is think about how I felt and the energy and what this stuff communicated to me."
Watch a Haswell-directed video for "Special Long Version Demo."
Tracklist
A1 The Surface Is Unrevealing
A2 First In Man (Williams Mix)
A3 Worsening Daily
B1 Special Long Version Demo feat. Sue Tompkins
B2 Let Suffering Become You
Diagonal will release Respondent on February 2nd, 2018.
Photo credit: Oscar Powell