Rustie
Glass Swords
After taking shape in the studio over the course of the past two years, ‘Glass Swords’ arrives, and as the otherworldly landscape of the album artwork suggests, it is epic and alien.
Glass Swords is almost entirely composed of dancefloor highs, a series of those hands-in-the-air peak-time moments that stick in the memory long after the rest of the night has turned hazy. Rustie constantly chases the next thrill, with rhythmic switch-ups and vivid synths firing in all directions as the album twists, turns and veers off at tangents; echoes of everything from early 90s rave and booty bass to Ginuwine's Pony (the belching bass of the aptly titled Ultra Thizz) indicate his own club tutelage. It's far from a scattershot ADD affair, though; fundamentally, Rustie has a knack for an irresistible hook, and for knowing when to stick with it and when to move on. He lands hammer blows of bass on Flash Back as a funked-up melody zigzags overhead; he cycles through the jabbing riff of Hover Traps in one sound after another, like a call-and-response among friends. "And you know I wanna ride out," croons fellow producer Nightwave on Surph, sounding utterly blissed out in the sweet shop of synths that surrounds her: by the time Glass Swords ends, she's singing for us all.
Tracklist
01 - Glass Swords
02 - Flash Back
03 - Surph
04 - Hover Traps
05 - City Star
06 - Globes
07 - Ultra Thizz
08 - Death Mountain
09 - Cry Flames
10 - After Light
11 - Ice Tunnels
12 - All Nite
13 - Crystal Echo