Russell Haswell - Digital (2020)

Coventry’s most notorious export celebrates 50 years of existence with an expansive new set on Editions Mego. Spread across 2 x vinyls (LP and 12”) and digital formats. Please note the 12" tracks are exclusive and do not appear on the digital release.

Having spent decades carving out his very particular niche which takes influence from a vast range of extreme music this is Russell’s nostalgic nod to his influences whilst forging onwards with his perpetually unforeseen experience. Working in a variety of media over decades Haswell’s belligerence towards his craft and critique of others has allowed him to operate in a zone outside of peers. As daunting as it is refreshing Haswell’s output is always on the very edge of genre.

2001 saw the release of his first audio documentation with Live Salvage 1997→2000, a compact disc that compiled a series of ferocious live performances. Paradoxically precise and reckless, Haswell’s music has an uneasy relationship with the predictable but acknowledges being birthed from a variety of 20th Century radical forms such as metal, noise, electro-acoustic, power electronics and techno.

Haswell’s ongoing output resides as a continuously in-flux, inquisitive and predominantly improvised exploration of the extreme limits of machine based art. Haswell has never been a ‘studio artist’ or ‘producer’.

12” channels the original role of the medium with 2 tracks of beats that present themselves in unpredictable ways. 12” also features the head shattering bonus cut, Always Check Their Instagram. LP cut at 33rpm allows explorations into broader territories with deep ambience running into twisted acid and splattered shapes bouncing amongst rapid fire rhythms,

This set is both a celebration of new forms whilst making many a sly nod to nostalgic influence throughout.

LP+12” and Digital is an unexpected experience from one of contemporary music’s most ruthlessly exhilarating and uncompromising figures. Raise a glass and listen LOUD.