Visionist

New Album ‘A Call to Arms’ Out Now

“By turns abrasive and beautiful, A Call To Arms is an arresting set of avant-garde ballads from Visionist.” – Bleep

“A literal post-clubbing record, electronic music born in an era stripped of communal dancing.” – The Wire

One of The Vinyl Factory’s Albums to look out for in March

“With A Call To Arms Carnell has taken a risk and it’s paid off well: his voice is a wonderful addition to compositions that are at once unnerving and beautiful.” – MusicOMH

VISIONIST releases his third album, A Call To Arms, today on Mute, marking a confident moment in his life and musical career. The new album is the first time Visionist’s singing voice, in the form of song and lyric, has been heard. “I had to stop taking refuge in the premise of ‘people don’t want to understand me’ and focus on being the best communicator I can be.”

Asked about the most important lyrics for him on the album, Visionist cites a passage from ‘Winter Sun’: “In hope we must reside”, clarifying “Hope is a form of no control and yet it is seen as an extremely positive energy, I am a believer in focused energy and how that can be used to prevail.”

Listen to ‘Winter Sun’, which features experimental saxophonist Ben Vince here:

For Visionist (aka Louis Carnell) each piece is a chapter in a bigger storyline. “My music very much reflects how my life has played out,” he explains, and previous album releases (Safe [2015 / PAN] and Value [2017 / Big Dada Recordings]) were seeding the land for A Call To Arms, an album that takes on big themes, in a personal voice. Not in the everyday political sense though. Instead, he builds intimate settings, creating spaces where he can place the shadows of the world’s current crises.

Collaborators and guests on A Call To Arms include Haley Fohr (Circuit Des Yeux); multimedia artist and opera singer, Lisa E. Harris; experimental multi-instrumentalist K.K. Null; Ben Romans Hopcraft (Childhood); artist and producer Wu-lu; pianist Matthew Bourne; Morgan Simpson (Black Midi) as well as Ben Vince.

While in the past his work flirted with the dance floor, this time the songs support a brand new sound architecture. “Now that I have done so much, I’m allowing my freedom.” To Visionist the songs on A Call To Arms are made for people who “take time and consider”.

The album artwork is by Visionist and Belgian artist, Peter De Potter, longtime collaborator with Raf Simons, whose recent artwork includes Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo.

Visionist recently modelled and soundtracked Per Götesson’s AW21 collection, and scored the Qasimi AW21 collection – both for London Fashion Week 21. To mark the album’s release Visionist and Copenhagen-based fashion label Heliot Emil launch the official A Call To Arms album capsule collection, available to pre-order via Visionist’s Bandcamp page: https://visionist.bandcamp.com/

Buy / listen to A Call To Arms: https://mute.ffm.to/visionist

WATCH:

‘Form’ directed by multi-disciplinary artist Arcin Sagdic: https://youtu.be/ducIhpBjrWs

‘The Fold’, created using footage filmed of Jonathan Schipper’s 2016 installation, Cubicle, from the Rice Gallery in Houston, TX,: https://youtu.be/zHU3nbUlK3Q

EDITORS NOTES:

London-based multi-disciplinary artist and producer Visionist formed his label Lost Codes in 2013. The label later became an imprint on PAN after he signed with them (at the time their youngest signed artist), releasing his debut in 2015. Working with artists such as the photographer Daniel Sannwald (who went on to work with Kelela and Yves Tumor) and Peter De Potter (whose collaborative work inc. Raf Simons and Kanye West), Rolling Stone included him as their only electronic artist in 2016’s Ones To Watch. In 2017, following several fashion collaborations scoring for the likes of Liam Hodges, Acne Studios and Kenzo x Selfridges, he released his next album on Big Dada before signing to Mute and beginning work on A Call To Arms, his third studio album. With trademark prescience (previous albums saw the artist tackle themes of anxiety and masculinity ahead of the mainstream), the new album creates an environment in which people stop their daily routines and start reflecting on the world around them.

FASHION COLLABORATIONS:

Nike (2013)

Acne Studios (2015)

Kenzo x Selfridges (2015)

Liam Hodges (2015 / 2016)

Nalos (2019)

Per Götesson (2020 / 2021)

Heliot Emil (2020 / 2021)

Qasimi (2021)

VISUAL COLLABORATIONS:

Daniel Sannwald (2015)

Frederik Heyman (2017)

Peter de Potter (2017 / 2021)

Nick Knight (2017)

Arcin Sagdic (2021)