Bolted

マッシヴ・アタックとのコラボやビョークのリミックスも手掛ける、異才フォレスト・ソーズが新作を発売!

イギリスのエレクトロニック・プロデューサー/作曲家、マシュー・バーンズによるプロジェクト、フォレスト・ソーズがニュー・アルバム『Bolted』を〈NINJA TUNE〉よりリリース!過去数年間、バレエや映画、ビデオゲームなどの音楽を手がける人気サウンドデザイナーとして活躍してきたバーンズの新作『Bolted』は、地元リヴァプールにある倉庫のようなファクトリースペースで、過去1年間に渡ってレコーディングされた。先行シングルとしてリリースされたメタリックなトリップホップ「Low」や、スウェーデン出身の伝説的ヴォーカリスト、ネナ・チェリーを迎えた「Butterfly Effect」など、本作の全11曲を通して、バーンズは、メランコリーと陶酔、モノクロームとカラー、過去と未来、デジタルとアコースティックを奇妙なほどに曖昧にさせ、逞しくも殺伐とした、幽玄かつユーフォリックなサウンドを紡ぎ出している。

An acclaimed composer as well as an innovative producer, Forest Swords Matthew Barnes spent several years after the release of 2017s Compassion scoring dance pieces, art installations, and films that suited the physicality and vivid imagination within his formidable beats and pensive melodies. Arriving six years after that album, Bolted shows his style lost none of its edge during that time. Nor has it lost its ability to surprise: based on the progression from Engravings smoky collages to Compassions solemn majesty, it seemed Barnes would continue to artfully prune his approach, but his third album trades spacious sonics for some of Forest Swords densest-sounding music since 2010s debut EP, Dagger Paths. "Munitions" was one of the first pieces he wrote for the album, and it sets the tone for whats to come. Beats scrape and clank, vocals fade in and out like a ghostly transmission, and a fluty melody weaves in and out of the distorted fray. It couldnt be more fitting that Barnes created Bolted in a space that used to be a warehouse. "Rubble" and "Chain Link" artfully evoke abandoned spaces -- or people -- with their weathered and metallic tones. Whether he tempers the noise with taut and brooding strings on the aforementioned tracks or hones the chromatic percussion on "Hjope" to gleaming points, his impressive control over the albums distressed palette reflects his musics restraint in a completely different way than Compassion did. At the time of Bolteds release, the crumbling, dystopian feel of Forest Swords music was only more relevant than it was in the 2010s, and Barnes somehow manages to inject even more tension into its tracks than on his previous releases. On "Caged," he toys with his listeners, luring them in with mournful choral vocals before the mood turns treacherous. "The Low" is as catchy as it is menacing, almost by default; its industrial-gamelan-trip-hop mashup is so claustrophobic, its inescapable. Though the sound design may be Bolteds most immediately gripping aspect, its heartsick atmosphere might be the most memorable. Barnes was recovering from a painful leg injury while making the album, and suffering feels ingrained in its finest moments. "Did I say too much?/Or not enough?" Neneh Cherry laments on "Butterfly Effect"s anguished elegance. On the closing epic "Lines Gone Cold," Barnes samples the late Lee "Scratch" Perry (who remixed Forest Swords 2013 single "Thors Stone") for the haunting finale. Its always fascinating to hear Barnes take Forest Swords distinctive musical vocabulary in different directions, especially when the results are as eloquent as Bolted. ~ Heather Phares

かつてトライ・アングルから登場して名を広め、2017年にはニンジャ・チューンでアルバム『Compassion』も残しているリヴァプールのサウンド・クリエイター。ふたたびニンジャに戻ってのニュー・アルバムでは、メタリックな先行シングルのトリップホップ"Low"を筆頭に、厚みのある音像の佳曲が揃う。ネナ・チェリーをフィーチャーした"Butterfly Effect"がもちろん聴きモノだ。
bounce (C)狛犬