On Forest Swords’ 2010 EP Dagger Paths, the web of dub, psych, dance, and drone spun by UK producer Matthew Barnes felt instantly singular. So singular, in fact, that the task of creating a worthy follow-up must have seemed daunting, which I assumed was why it took him a while. It turns out there were other reasons-- for one, he suffered from hearing problems that made his new work sound different with each listen, and forced him to consider ending Forest Swords. But also, in keeping with his music’s slow-growing vibe, he was wary of rushing things. As he admitted in a February interview, “I’m glad I took a step back…I’ve seen so many bands who strike while the iron’s hot and then burn out.”
Barnes’ judgment proved sound, as did his ears, at least in their ability to assess his work. Created at his own pace in his own home in North West England, Engravings is the perfect sequel to Dagger Paths. Barnes steadfastly retains his sturdy loops, simple beats, and evocative guitar lines, refusing to overhaul his potent formula just to dodge accusations that he’s repeating himself. But he also gradually inserts new sounds into that equation, fitting them snugly into his songs’ accumulating layers. The result is both familiar and fresh, cementing Barnes’ knack for creating complex effects with elementary methods.
Engravings also confirms his ability to conjure more than just a chilly, faded-memory vibe. Dagger Paths did that too, but it was easy to get lost in its burned-out echo and miss other ideas and moods that Barnes explored along the way. Here, those diverse facets of his music are unavoidable. Every song is boldly sensual, and each note has a distinct emotional hue. Mixing that intensity with dream-like atmospheres lands Engravings in a unique emotional space, one Barnes accurately describes as a “balance between really intense euphoria and this almost bleakness.”
Trying to balance those opposites could produce disjointed, even jarring art. But one of the biggest strengths of Forest Swords’ music is its fluidity. Although Barnes adds and subtracts loops and beats without hiding the seams, he persistently maintains a DJ-like flow. As a result, following the curving path of his melodies feels more like riding a wave than cutting through choppy waters. So even a track as spliced together as “Onward”-- which opens with a stuttering clang, grafts on glittering guitar, then drifts into strings and a pounding beat-- feels completely logical, as if this is the only way time could march on.
Barnes’ strong sense of flow lets him add new twists to his sound without forcing them in. Often they emerge sneakily, like the radio-static transmissions in “Ljoss”, the New Age piano on “Gathering”, the horn-section accents in “An Hour”, or the near-militaristic beat of ecstatic closer “Friend, You Will Never Learn”. In other places, these additions are clearer, but they’re always well-suited to their environment, as if Barnes had no other choice but to include them in his mix.
That’s especially true of the increased amount of singing on Engravings. The majority of it comes from Barnes’ own voice, which he sampled and then edited down to a nearly molecular level. This digital abstraction of the music’s most human element gives Engravings subliminal warmth, as if the ghosts of long-dead lyrics are watching over the songs. At times, vocals even become the focus: “Gathering” is nothing but overlapped singing for its first half, and the inclusion of Brighton-based vocalist Anneka on “Anneka’s Battle” adds vivid soul to Barnes’ brand of negative-space R&B.
Barnes inviting a guest onto a Forest Swords song is a bit surprising. His one-man music is usually a personal affair: you can practically hear him thinking through the songs as they unfold, and all the reverb and atmosphere make them feel like internal monologues. But compared to Dagger Paths, there’s more acknowledgement of the external world on Engravings. Barnes incorporates field recordings and refers to his locale in song titles; he also mixed the entire album on his laptop while sitting outside. Opening his process up a bit to include his environment perhaps explains how music this skeletal can sound like it has so much blood coursing through it.
It also explains how the one-man world of Forest Swords can feel so universal. Unrestricted by words or verse-chorus structures, Barnes’ songs reflect the way life can feel like an endless loop, growing and building without ever losing its cyclical nature. Maybe that’s why, even though Forest Swords’ sound skirts an array of genres, it doesn’t belong to any single one. Barnes’ work is less concerned with trends or scenes than experiences and memories that everyone has had, regardless of what music they’ve listened to before. On that count, Engravings is a broad success.
