It is upon us.
After taking shape in the studio over the course of the past two years, ‘Glass Swords’ arrives, and as the otherworldly landscape of the album artwork suggests, it is epic and alien.
Watch a short video clip for album opener and title track 'Glass Swords' below - if anything, this should keep you guessing.
Glasgow’s talent pool clearly runs deep, and if the city’s last few years of genre-busting electronic music have made anything remotely clear it’s that Rustie is one of the deep-fried kingdom’s crown jewels. Emerging with the rest of the multi-talented Numbers crew, and with only a handful of laser-guided releases to his name, his presence far outreaches his focused, evolving discography. Rightly mentioned in the same breath with many of the most innovative producers in the world, astute Pitchfork scribe Martin Clarke once described Rustie’s music “like a metaphor for living in intense digital excess” – something everyone should be able to relate to.
As is often the case, this digital excess also mirrors the excesses of the physical world, and so Rustie time travels for the cocaine-addled synthesizer washes and searing guitar tones of 1980’s pop, the cash-infused bombast of new-millennium R&B, the pit-of-your-stomach ecstasy high of the most classic rave memories and the bloodshot scowl of white-hot pirate radio broadcasts. In 2007, with a new generation of irreverent producers and artists seemingly simultaneously uploading their music to MySpace, Rustie’s ‘Jagz The Smack’ EP was a miniature revelation. In a swift five tracks, it managed to not only synthesize the tone of mid-decade electronic music, but also provided a danceable prediction for much of what would soon be called “UK bass music” (not to mention many other, far less eloquent, names).
It would take three more years to move through a string of now classic 12”s like ‘Zig-Zag’, ‘Bad Science’ and ‘Play Doe/Tempered’, his collaboration with Bristol’s mighty Joker. This unfettered run was capped by a string of essential remixes (or “Resmacks” in the parlance of Rustie) for the likes of Jamie Lidell, Kelis, The Big Pink and Nicki Minaj, leading into his debut EP for Warp, ‘Sunburst’. In another breathless five-track flash, ‘Sunburst’ amalgamated Rustie’s love for obscure Japanese prog-rock, 16-bit video game sonics and icy grime and Detroit techno heft into a fleeting vision of the future of rave music. Snare rolls ricocheted, synths undulated in hypercolor hues and the bass bubbled over, the stage was set.
Keep a keen eye out on and 'Like' Rustie's Facebook Page to keep up with music as we release it.
Rustie - Glass Swords
WARP217 - Double 12inch, CD & Download
01 - Glass Swords
02 - Flash Back
03 - Surph
04 - Hover Traps
05 - City Star
06 - Globes
07 - Ultra Thizz
08 - Death Mountain
09 - Cry Flames
10 - After Light
11 - Ice Tunnels
12 - All Nite
13 - Crystal Echo
Released 10/11 October 2011
Preorder Glass Swords at Bleep
Watch a short video clip for album opener and title track 'Glass Swords' below - if anything, this should keep you guessing.
Glasgow’s talent pool clearly runs deep, and if the city’s last few years of genre-busting electronic music have made anything remotely clear it’s that Rustie is one of the deep-fried kingdom’s crown jewels. Emerging with the rest of the multi-talented Numbers crew, and with only a handful of laser-guided releases to his name, his presence far outreaches his focused, evolving discography. Rightly mentioned in the same breath with many of the most innovative producers in the world, astute Pitchfork scribe Martin Clarke once described Rustie’s music “like a metaphor for living in intense digital excess” – something everyone should be able to relate to.
As is often the case, this digital excess also mirrors the excesses of the physical world, and so Rustie time travels for the cocaine-addled synthesizer washes and searing guitar tones of 1980’s pop, the cash-infused bombast of new-millennium R&B, the pit-of-your-stomach ecstasy high of the most classic rave memories and the bloodshot scowl of white-hot pirate radio broadcasts. In 2007, with a new generation of irreverent producers and artists seemingly simultaneously uploading their music to MySpace, Rustie’s ‘Jagz The Smack’ EP was a miniature revelation. In a swift five tracks, it managed to not only synthesize the tone of mid-decade electronic music, but also provided a danceable prediction for much of what would soon be called “UK bass music” (not to mention many other, far less eloquent, names).
It would take three more years to move through a string of now classic 12”s like ‘Zig-Zag’, ‘Bad Science’ and ‘Play Doe/Tempered’, his collaboration with Bristol’s mighty Joker. This unfettered run was capped by a string of essential remixes (or “Resmacks” in the parlance of Rustie) for the likes of Jamie Lidell, Kelis, The Big Pink and Nicki Minaj, leading into his debut EP for Warp, ‘Sunburst’. In another breathless five-track flash, ‘Sunburst’ amalgamated Rustie’s love for obscure Japanese prog-rock, 16-bit video game sonics and icy grime and Detroit techno heft into a fleeting vision of the future of rave music. Snare rolls ricocheted, synths undulated in hypercolor hues and the bass bubbled over, the stage was set.
Keep a keen eye out on and 'Like' Rustie's Facebook Page to keep up with music as we release it.
Rustie - Glass Swords
WARP217 - Double 12inch, CD & Download
01 - Glass Swords
02 - Flash Back
03 - Surph
04 - Hover Traps
05 - City Star
06 - Globes
07 - Ultra Thizz
08 - Death Mountain
09 - Cry Flames
10 - After Light
11 - Ice Tunnels
12 - All Nite
13 - Crystal Echo
Released 10/11 October 2011
Preorder Glass Swords at Bleep