Published
Mon, Nov 14, 2016, 19:24
- The upcoming LP features members of Swans and The Necks.
Lawrence English's next LP, Cruel Optimism, is scheduled for a February 2017 release.
The Australian ambient and experimental producer will be putting out the album through his own Room40 label, where he had last appeared with his 2014 full-length Wilderness Of Mirrors. The new record has its origins in, and takes its title from, a 2011 book by Lauren Berlant, an American theorist and professor at the University of Chicago.
English says Cruel Optimism "is a record that considers power (present and absent)." Pointing to a number of major issues, including the Middle East's refugee crisis, racial, gender and sexual inequality, and both the Brexit vote and the US election cycle, he also describes the album as "a meditation on these challenges and an encouragement to press forward towards more profound futures."
Cruel Optimism is heavy on collaborations, with each of its ten tracks involving at least one other contributor. Among those artists are Tony Buck and Chris Abrahams from The Necks, Swans members Norman Westberg and Thor Harris and the Australian Voices ensemble.
Tracklist
01. Hard Rain
02. The Quietest Shore
03. Hammering A Screw
04. Crow
05. Requiem For A Reaper Pillar Of Cloud
06. Exquisite Human Microphone
07. Object Of Projection
08. Negative Drone
09. Somnambulist
10. Moribund Territories
Room40 will release Cruel Optimism on February 17th, 2016.