Welsh artist Koreless returns with ‘Black Rainbow’, a pumping, anthropomorphic electronic jam that has blood and guts where the wires should be. Koreless’ first solo material in 5 years, ‘Black Rainbow’ is served with a video originally conceived and shot in a ravine in Rachub, North Wales during lockdown 2020.
The video for ‘Black Rainbow’ is inspired in equal parts by cult 70’s coming of age BBC drama Penda’s Fen, soft orthopedic foam and slow-motion bullet time videos of the Gloucester Cheese Rolling Competition.
Shot with director Alex Turvey and then subjected to what Koreless calls a “months long edit marathon” with the help of artist Daniel Swan, the video features Koreless’ (real name Lewis Roberts) younger brother Iwan as a cascading horde of vegetal clones in foam armor designed by Julia Tyrrell Bunge.
A glorious statement of intent, ‘Black Rainbow’ is a track that makes the blood run faster while also sounding like it has been constantly distilled, a typical Koreless approach.
Released today on digital services, ‘Black Rainbow’ was released last week on limited 10” vinyl with the B-side ‘Moonlight’, a take on 20th century composer Benjamin Britten’s interlude of the same name. “There’s a crushing inevitability lurking in Ben Britten’s music that I wanted to try to understand and expose” he explains. The result is a blended work of spectral, fizzing horns that meld together both centuries in seamless fashion.
Recently, 2019 saw Koreless taking producer credits on FKA twigs’ acclaimed album MAGDALENE, but it was February this year that saw the first rumbling of activity from Koreless himself, with a critically-acclaimed remix for Caribou (“the Welsh producer returns in a high-profile way” – Resident Advisor) soon followed by another for Perfume Genius. Expect more soon from Koreless.
