Bleep

Visionist morphs back into sight with his immaculately sculpted new album Value, his first for Big Dada. Where his debut Safe used its visceral soundscapes to transcribe the panic and fear that ensures during an anxiety attack, Value expands on this trajectory of strength and vulnerability to examine the borders built up between broader themes of machismo and effeminacy, self-deprecation and self-love, and self-preservation and validation.

Arriving two years on from his PAN debut, Value pushes the envelope of the dystopian grime sound of his previous work by transmitting both himself and us as the listener, deeper into his own psyche. More so than ever before, he approaches his music with a graceful composed elegance that sits side by side with the relentless energy that made his early work stand out so far forward. Value finds elements of neoclassical ambience dropped into the club context of haunted memories and ice rink rhythms that pulsate around the machines that make up this high-gloss soundworld.

Making use of his own vocals for the very first time, Visionist uses this added layer to bury himself deep into the thought processes that surround the album's core ideas of humanistic and intimate creation. This journey is set up with the album opener 'Self', his voice laid out bare, punctured by injections of rapid lucidity and abrasive rhythms that build up high walls that close in around his voice before falling deep into itself. The fluid motion of the music that follows makes Value an incredibly powerful listen. Icicle-like structures of techno-geo-ology fall down with all the intense beauty of a vast waterfall. One viewed from far away, yet close enough that the intense violence that bubbles just beneath the surface is achingly ever present. Each track acts as a sort of abyss that, the further in you look, the more you see how much work Visionist has given to Value. As he explains "I’m pretty reserved but, within my art, it is important for me to give a part of myself”.

Arriving on Big Dada, Visionist is joined by the design scope of the influential artist Peter De Potter (who previously designed The Life of Pablo for Kanye West), Daniel Sannwald who provided the artist shots and Frederik Heyman and Teri Varhol who are directing the album's visual aspect.