Working as an in-demand composer and sound designer – writing music for ballet, film and video games – Bolted was recorded over the last twelve months in Barnes’ home city of Liverpool. His ad hoc studio in a former vehicle and munitions factory (with connections to shadowy guerilla artists The KLF) became a gateway for him to explore, using a combination of hardware, software and tape machines to mould and sculpt a sound world for the album. Across its 11 tracks he dives deeper into his unique sonic vocabulary (including personal samples of Neneh Cherry and the late Lee Scratch Perry) to weave together a set of tracks that sounds equally muscular and bleak, haunting and euphoric. While his previous album – the acclaimed Compassion released in 2017 – saw Barnes toy with widescreen technicolour, the world of Bolted is tightly wound, taught, with a sense of aching urgency like never before. Recommended if you like… Aphex Twin, Björk, Oneohtrix Point Never, Andy Stott, Boards of Canada, Burial, Massive Attack.