Forest Swords Announces New Album Compassion, Shares Video for New Track: Watch

Forest Swords, aka producer Matthew Barnes, is back with his first studio album since 2013’s Engravings. Compassion, which follows his dance score Shrine, is out May 5 on Ninja Tune. As well as “The Highest Flood,” released earlier this month, the record is preceded by “Arms Out,” which has a new, ritualistic video directed by Barnes and Sam Wiehl. Watch it below, and scroll down to see the album art and tracklist. The record “will be followed by a set of multidisciplinary projects expanding the themes and concepts across wider disciplines,” according to a press release.

“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,” Barnes said in the press release. “So I realised there’s some sort of power in trying to create our own instead.” He added: “I’m increasingly interested in the effects the web and media has on the way we think it’s acceptable to communicate with each other day-to-day, and that maybe our current language structures aren’t doing justice to how complex our emotions and identities are. The idea of flexible future languages, that bends to our needs quicker, excites me.”

Revisit our Guest List interview with Barnes.

Compassion:

01 War It
02 The Highest Flood
03 Panic
04 Exalter
05 Border Margin Barrier
06 Arms Out
07 Vandalism
08 Sjurvival
09 Raw Language
10 Knife Edge

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