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''Glass Swords'' is the debut
studio album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...
by Scottish producer Russell Whyte under his alias of
Rustie
Rustie (born Russell Whyte) is a Scottish musician from Glasgow. He is associated with the Numbers label collective and first received attention for his 2007 EP ''Jagz the Smack''. He signed to Warp Records in 2009. His 2011 debut album '' Glas ...
, released by
Warp
Warp, warped or warping may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Books and comics
* WaRP Graphics, an alternative comics publisher
* ''Warp'' (First Comics), comic book series published by First Comics based on the play ''Warp!''
* Warp (comics), a ...
in 2011. The album was produced and recorded between 2008 and 2010 by Whyte, partially in his father's home in Glasgow, Scotland and partly in his own home in London, England. The album contains vocal work from Whyte as well as London based producer Nightwave.
''Glass Swords'' is a musically diverse album that critics found hard to classify as anything specific other than
electronic music
Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...
. The track "Ultra Thizz" was released as a single in September 2011 before the album's release in October of the same year. Re-worked versions of the songs "Surph" and "
After Light" were released as singles in 2012 with new vocalists. The album received critical acclaim and was listed as one of the best albums of 2011 by ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', ''
The Wire
''The Wire'' is an American Crime film, crime drama Television show, television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The ...
'' and ''
Mixmag
''Mixmag'' is a British electronic dance and clubbing magazine published in London. Launched in 1983 as a print magazine, it has branched into dance events, including festivals and club nights.
History
The first issue of ''Mixmag'' was prin ...
'' and shortlisted for the
Scottish Album of the Year Award
The Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award is an award given annually for an outstanding album produced by a Scottish artist. The award was launched in 2012 by thScottish Music Industry Association(SMIA) in partnership with Creative Scotland
Cre ...
in 2012.
Production
Whyte stated that he began working on the album in "2008 maybe" and worked on it for a two-year period.
''Glass Swords'' was recorded in Whyte's father's house in
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
and in his home in London after Whyte had moved there.
The album's music was developed with Whyte not having a strong idea for it, noting that he was "just making tracks and not really thinking too much of it as being an album".
The album was created using
Ableton
Ableton AG is a German music software company that produces and distributes the production and performance program Ableton Live and a collection of related instruments and sample libraries, as well as their own hardware controller Ableton Push. ...
on a personal computer along with a
MIDI guitar
A guitar synthesizer is any one of a number of musical instrument systems that allow a guitarist to access synthesizer capabilities.
Overview
Today's guitar synths are direct descendants of 1970s devices from manufacturers (often in partnersh ...
controller, a
MIDI keyboard
A MIDI keyboard or controller keyboard is typically a piano-style electronic musical keyboard, often with other buttons, wheels and sliders, used for sending MIDI signals or commands over a USB or MIDI 5-pin cable to other musical devi ...
, keyboard, electric guitar and a microphone.
To give the album an analogue sound, Whyte used
compressors
A compressor is a mechanical device that increases the pressure of a gas by reducing its volume. An air compressor is a specific type of gas compressor.
Compressors are similar to pumps: both increase the pressure on a fluid and both can trans ...
and tape distortion plugins to get the tracks what he described as a "sort of warmth".
Vocals on the album were done by Whyte on the track "Surph" while his girlfriend Nightwave performed some of the backing vocals.
Whyte described his music as trying to channel "good energy, just love and peace and happiness and joy. That's what I want from my music, and that's what I want other people to feel."
The last six months of production were spent by Whyte "trying to glue everything together so it made sense as an album."
This involved adding intros to some tracks and other motifs to "make it make more sense". Whyte created around one hundred tracks for the album and whittled down the album to a final selection of fourteen.
These tracks were sent back and forth between himself and
Warp
Warp, warped or warping may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Books and comics
* WaRP Graphics, an alternative comics publisher
* ''Warp'' (First Comics), comic book series published by First Comics based on the play ''Warp!''
* Warp (comics), a ...
which Whyte described as a "long process" as he found it difficult having people critique the music he wanted to release.
Prior to the release of ''Glass Swords'' and any single, Whyte released the EP ''Sunburst'' in 2010.
Several tracks originally planned for the album were described by Whyte as "a lot weirder and more ambient", but that Warp "didn't really want that".
Style
Music critics described the album as spanning several subgenres of electronic music. ''
Spin'' opined that ''Glass Swords music "doesn't adhere to any strict definition of genre beyond loose electronic".
A reviewer for ''
Fact'' described the influences of the album as being from video games,
progressive rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...
and "big room dance music".
while the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
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...
stated the songs on the album are "often jamming five or six recognisable influences into a single four-minute track."
These included "glossy synths",
dirty south hip hop
Southern hip hop, also known as Southern rap, South Coast hip hop, or dirty south, is a blanket term for a regional genre of American hip hop music that emerged in the Southern United States, especially in Atlanta, New Orleans, Houston, Memph ...
percussion and "fragments of
dubstep
Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. The style emerged as a UK garage offshoot that blended 2-step rhythms and sparse dub production, as well as incorporating elements of broken be ...
,
UK garage
UK garage, abbreviated as UKG, is a genre of electronic dance music which originated in England in the early to mid-1990s. The genre was most clearly inspired by garage house, but also incorporates elements from dance-pop, R&B, and jungle. It ...
, classic
Detroit techno
Detroit techno is a type of techno music that generally includes the first techno productions by Detroit-based artists during the 1980s and early 1990s. Prominent Detroit techno artists include Juan Atkins, Eddie Fowlkes, Derrick May, Jeff Mil ...
and
trance music
Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that emerged from the British new-age music scene and the early 1990s German techno and hardcore scenes.
Trance music is characterized by a tempo generally lying between 135–150 beats per minut ...
".
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
shared the multiple genres view, finding that it integrated "the currently hip and terminally unhip – garish probes of '80s synth rock, beaten-to-a-pulp dance-pop, '90s rave, and bass music, to name four of several drawing points."
MTV
MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...
noted the pop culture references in ''Glass Swords'', namely "Hover Traps" samples the video game ''
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time'' and the title of "Ultra Thizz" references Bay Area slang for the drug
ecstasy.
Both ''
Drowned in Sound'' and ''
Resident Advisor'' felt that the
slap bass
Slapping and popping are ways to produce percussive sounds on a stringed instrument. It is primarily used on the double bass or bass guitar. Slapping on bass guitar involves using the edge of one's knuckle, where it is particularly bony, to ...
on "Hover Traps" "sounds like it was taken right off of ''
Seinfeld
''Seinfeld'' ( ) is an American television sitcom created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. It aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, over nine seasons and List of Seinfeld episodes, 180 episodes. It stars Seinfeld as Jerry Seinfeld ( ...
''".
''
Pitchfork
A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves.
The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to ...
'' noted that the album's more traditional dubstep songs "won't sit still or do what they're supposed to".
Specifically, "Crystal Echo" contains sped-up voices and melodies with a dubstep-styled bass while "Surph" used the bass drops related to dubstep but also includes what Pitchfork describes as "pop-rave pianos, trance keyboards, and snippets of sugary R&B".
Release
A single of "Ultra Thizz" was released by
Warp
Warp, warped or warping may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Books and comics
* WaRP Graphics, an alternative comics publisher
* ''Warp'' (First Comics), comic book series published by First Comics based on the play ''Warp!''
* Warp (comics), a ...
as a
12" vinyl single and as a
digital download on 6 September 2011. For the ''Glass Swords'' album cover, Whyte was shown various designer's portfolios by Warp. Whyte chose Jonathan Zawada, as he felt it had a "'70s sci-fi art feel".
After discussing ideas with Whyte, Zawada gave him the album cover in a few days.
When asked about the album cover resembling two erect penises, Whyte responded "Everyone says that! That's what I thought when I first saw it and I was like, 'Am I okay with that?' And, yeah, that's fine."
''Glass Swords'' was released by
Warp
Warp, warped or warping may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Books and comics
* WaRP Graphics, an alternative comics publisher
* ''Warp'' (First Comics), comic book series published by First Comics based on the play ''Warp!''
* Warp (comics), a ...
on vinyl, compact disc and digital download on 10 October 2011 in the United Kingdom and 11 October in the United States.
A launch party for ''Glass Swords'' was held on 1 October 2011,
which included a performance from Rustie along with DJ sets from
Darkstar, Nightwave and Spencer.
A re-worked version of "Surph" was released as a single featuring Nightwave on vocals in March 2012.
In 2012, a re-worked version of the song "After Light" was released with Aluna Francis, the singer for United Kingdom-based R&B group
AlunaGeorge
AlunaGeorge are an English electronic music duo from London, consisting of singer-songwriter Aluna Francis and producer George Reid.
Career
2009: Formation
The duo first met in June 2009, when Reid remixed Francis' band My Toys Like Me's trac ...
, providing the vocals.
Whyte's follow-up album to ''Glass Swords'' titled ''
Green Language'' was released in 2014.
Critical reception
At
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a
normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an
average
In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...
score of 82, indicating universal acclaim, based on 14 reviews.
''
Pitchfork
A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves.
The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to ...
'' stated that "One of the best things about ''Glass Swords'' is that, for all of its pop-goes-clubbing bluster, it's also as psychedelic, where the devil's in the zillion little details zigzagging across the tracks" and that "there's not a lot here that will redefine your ideas of what dubstep or electronic music in general can do. For all of Rustie's skill as a sculptor of very 21st-century beats, ''Glass Swords'' can feel just as much like a "greatest bits" collage."
''
Fact'' gave the album a five out of five rating, stating that "you get the impression that it's the point Rustie has been building up to for the last five years; an album made in relative isolation, with zero self-consciousness, shame or thought for trend behind it."
''
Drowned in Sound'' gave the album an eight out of ten rating, finding that the album is "equally impressive is the fact that this formula (or lack thereof) never grows tired. Thirteen tracks of excess could easily have been a recipe for sighs, but instead it is consistently addictive and grin-inducing."
The
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
described Whyte's music as "a little difficult to handle" but that the album "shows just the right amount of restraint to prevent total disarray. Even if the album weren't half as much fun as it is, that feat would be worthy of celebration in itself."