Daniel Avery has never sought to sit in one lane. An eclectic selector, his DJ sets move from left-field ambience through to full-on techno chuggers via shoegaze, psych, and more.
As a producer, his catalogue embodies this same thirst for variety. Debut album ‘Drone Logic’ turns 10 next year, the beginning of a path that led to 2021’s about-turn ‘Together In Static’.
Daniel Avery brings these threads – and more – together on new album ‘Ultra Truth’, a superb, vastly creative album, both broad-ranging and incredibly unified. A true album experience, the producer aligns himself with close friends to attempt new projects, taking his music in fresh pathways during the process.
Out now, ‘Ultra Truth’ takes some time to truly sink in. To aid your aural experience, Daniel Avery has penned a full guide to the album…
I should begin by saying that this is an album intended to be listened to as a whole. A record whose world you can get lost inside for its duration. That’s been an idea I’ve always loved in my favourite albums and something for which I always strive.
That being said, the recording of the album took place over a number of years and was not pieced together in its final form until the forced hiatus of lockdown where I was able to find some space and a place of quiet reflection. This is my Ultra Truth.
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1. New Faith
One thing I knew for certain from the outset was that I wanted the entire record to have a human quality, more so than anything I’ve done before. I wanted to build a collective of like-minded friends and collaborators to take on the journey with me. I stumbled across the beautiful piano recordings of Sophie Hutchings during a late night Youtube dive and started chopping up small loops. This one phrase stayed with me and I experimented with creating an eternal loop from it, much like my piece ‘Visible Gravity’ from a few years ago – unapologetic repetition is one of life’s great pleasures (love and eternal respect to Mr. Basinski). The beauty of the loop descends into flames of distortion, the sound of which defines the whole album.
Marie Davidson is an artist I admire greatly, someone who always does things entirely on her own terms and with an unbreakable punk spirit. I’d written a number of short poems during the recording process and asked Marie to recite one in her own style. Her voice has a ghostly quality to it here:
Beyond the silent shadow
Under the weight of a collapsing sky
Close your eyes
And look to the light
In the past I have often spoken about music and particularly clubbing offering an escape from the real world. I still believe in the power of that idea but will admit it’s something I held onto far too dogmatically for a number of years, ignoring a huge amount of darkness in my own life. It takes staring into that void to begin to find some form of inner peace. This idea is that burning fire at the heart of the record.
2. Ultra Truth
Finishing this track was the moment I knew I had my best album in me. It explores the combination of soaring melodies and distorted drums I looked at on ‘Together In Static’ but in a heavier way. I want to give a special mention to my longtime studio partner James Greenwood who many will know from his Ghost Culture project. As ever, his fingerprints are all over this album – his skill for making synths sing is unlike anyone I’ve ever met.
It was a sunny day in the studio when we came across the main hook and had it on repeat, doors open, blasting our across the water. Several neighbours came over asking what the record was, assuming it was a sample. The track had that timeless feeling from the very beginning.
I played it to HAAi very late into an after-party while on tour together in India and she immediately said “that has to open the album.” She was right.
3. Wall Of Sleep
HAAi and I became the best of friends from our first meeting several years ago – one of those connections you don’t find very often. We’ve DJ’d together many times but it’s taken until this point for us to get into the studio together.
The demo version of this track had a cut up sample from an old folk song but I wanted an organic voice and knew that Teneil could nail it – her voice has such a majestic and pure quality to it. Given how they were formed, the lyrics are not entirely decipherable which is something we leaned into in the spirit of our shared love for the Cocteau Twins. Saying that, the phrase “all my friends” is aptly somewhat audible in the mix. Ghost Culture also makes a cameo here on saxophone.
The pads are made up of countless layers of different synths and droned out arpeggios, all drowned in reverb creating their own melodies as they feed back into each other. I should mention that the drums are my favourite component of the album in general, every single hit was fed through a wall of distortion to create a sound I’ve had in my head since I started making music but only now have been able to realise. With all of this combined, ‘Wall Of Sleep’ defines the aesthetic of the whole album: a cave in which to get lost, hopeful steps towards a burning light, flanked by your favourite people.
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4. The Slow Bullet
Every good album needs space. I feel this track has a direct relationship to the album ‘Illusion Of Time’ I made with Alessandro Cortini, full of distorted atmosphere to create something intense and beautiful.
I’ve always loved pop music and am a big fan of the band The 1975 – in my eyes a very genuine, sincere and deceptively experimental modern act. I worked on a remix for their last album which never got finished but I was very drawn to the sound of Matt Healy’s voice fed through the gnarled processes I’ve adopted in recent years. It’s an unusual combination and one I’m proud to include on this album.
The title comes from old pal Nick who runs London’s best pub The Gun – it was said deep into the night so I struggle to remember the context but I told him straight up I was having it.
5. Devotion
I am in no way an expert on jungle music but it’s a sound I’ve always loved since being introduced to it by acts like Autechre and Aphex Twin as a teenager, around the same time I was deeply into the enveloping walls of noise made by bands such as My Bloody Valentine and Mogwai. It was not a conscious decision but ‘Devotion’ certainly feels like a diary entry re-discovered from that era.
I became obsessed with the compilation, layering and manipulation of breakbeats for this record. Taking things from the past and pushing them to the front of my vision. If the drums did not rattle the metal walls of my studio then they were discarded. Raw as fuck or go home. The bassline was a last minute addition to the track and tied the whole idea together. The voice is me, or rather a version of me. In my mind there’s a character running throughout the record, some kind of protagonist taking different forms named Ultra.
Ultra was alone but Ultra was never afraid
I found this phrase written in my phone. It feels like it was written by somebody else.
6. Only
It’s difficult to describe just how much I love the band HTRK. Their music has been a constant in my life for years, soundtracking my entire time in London. I once said that if The Velvet Underground and Nico were still making music today, they might sound like HTRK but even that is not giving enough credit to a band who have consistently created beautifully haunting, moving records that go deep inside your soul from the moment you hear them.
HTRK actually worked on a remix for the ‘Drone Logic’ album but time ran out so it’s with enormous joy, a decade on, I have Jonnine Standish singing vocals on this record. I had made a short instrumental using a warped rave break and Jonnine excitedly came back with the finished article. You will have to ask her what the lyrics mean, I don’t particularly need to know myself but I was instantly certain that the mood fit the rest of the album. One of my favourite tracks I’ve ever been a part of.
Only the monsters love me
They just wanna be my only
They just wanna kiss and hold me
And dance til we get home
7. Spider
This one was recorded in the middle of the Devon countryside, looking out across lush green fields, sun streaming in through the windows. It was made during the same session as ‘One More Morning’ from ‘Love + Light’ and I believe you can hear the connection. Every fucking artist says this but go back and listen to the quieter moments on that album plus its sister release ‘Together In Static’ after living with the new record for a while and some truths will start to reveal themselves. I remember spending hours and hours on the synth pattern with James: the tone, the sustain of the notes, the exact gap between the hits – it was enough to cause insomnia at the time. Every second was worth it of course as it added up to something special. I adore this track and knew it had to go directly in the middle of the album.
8. Near Perfect
The spiritual partner to ‘Only’, a layer of rave breaks distorted and manipulated to create a something new coupled with a fog of drone draping the sky. When I talk about realising sounds that have been in my head for years, I need to give thanks to Manni Dee whose work is across the entire record. It was Manni who continually encouraged me to push sounds further in the studio, to fan the flames fraying the fringes.
Beyond an incredible artist in his own right, Manni is a master of sonics and the album would not sound the way it does without his input. On a personal note, lockdown saved my life. Being forced to stop was a chance to look at myself and my life in ways I had been trying to escape for a number of years in order to realise exactly who I was. It was a complete recalibration and a total reset.
This is the main reason why I wanted this record to sound like it’s on fire. This is a new beginning.
9. Higher
Sherelle is an artist I hugely admire, the definition of a supernova act dancing to the beat of their own drum. We had a long conversation during lockdown about the power of electronic music and the importance of the culture surrounding it. I knew that the track ‘Higher’ needed a human introduction and a clip from this conversation fit perfectly.
Those emotions had to go out somewhere…
This line encapsulates the track for me. A complete burst of emotions and energy that keeps escalating until the very end. The bell melody towards the end reminds me of The Cure, a band as important to me as any other.
This record was mixed by Marta Salogni, a musical genius in my opinion. Marta has an incredible way of making things sound huge and delicate at the same time. She understood the concept of the album from the first moment and took on the challenge of pushing everything to breaking point without losing any intricacies. Listen to this album, and particularly this track, on headphones for the best experience.
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10. Ache
I don’t know why
I’m in the middle of something I can’t wake up from
And you’re part of it
Side C of the album is its most plaintive and thoughtful. This track was made in Peckham with AK Paul, a supremely talented artist and great guy. The ‘pad’ is in fact AK singing through a wind instrument before being droned out, adding another human element to the album.
11. Collapsing Sky
This track is about when the darkness feels overwhelming – I’ve been in that place many times over the years. Music and the community around it has always been a source of hope for me, a way to light the road ahead. There’s a sadness running through this track but it’s also probably the beautiful thing I’ve made, full of orchestral bombast. The track is in 5/4 timing, that of a waltz. To me it feels like an embrace with a loved one and a dance out of the bad times into a better place.
12. Lone Swordsman
I was in my studio the morning I heard about Andrew Weatherall’s passing. The track ‘Lone Swordsman’ is what formed that day. Andrew was a hero, a friend and someone who regularly reminded us all how it should be done, not to mention the funniest fucker around. While this track was originally released as a 12” just after ‘Love + Light’, I felt it deserved to be on an album and particularly one that feels so personal to me.
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13. Overflowing With Escape
The word escape is wrong
I haven’t been trying to escape
Those words sum up the record – this is about staring into the darkness and no longer running from it. This is the noisiest track I’ve made and it signified a journey through the looking glass from the thoughtful section into the album’s finale of intensity.
14. Chaos Energy
The reprise of promise is here
Fresh with broken haze
Atop the Shadow Mountain
Burns the fire of better days
‘Chaos Energy’ is a distorted fever dream of a record. As mentioned, I’ve previously found making music to be an escape from a reality but I feel differently now as the world outside continues to feel uncertain. This is about looking directly into the fire and keeping the important people in your life close to you, navigating the darkness together.
HAAi is back on vocal duties and the introduction is by Kelly Lee Owens, one of the first great friends I met in London and the original voice of ‘Drone Logic’. Now a bonafide superstar in her own right, it felt fitting for Kelly to return a decade later. The poem mirrors the one read by Marie at the beginning of the record – the Shadow Mountain representing a sense of fear with which I’ve often struggled. That fire of better days, though – that always wins. It has to win.
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15. Heavy Rain
This track was always going to finish the record, it had an epic atmosphere from the very first moments. In some ways this is the nearest thing to a ‘club’ track here, which is not intentional but probably gives an indication of where my head was at during the recording. Everything has clearly been informed by techno in some way but I wanted the record to spread its wings beyond that world.
The closing poem is by James Massiah someone whose work I love for its weight, boldness and intensity of delivery. I invited James down to the studio, he sat and listened to the album all the way through, taking notes. He then stood up and read this poem in one take. Done. Perfection first time. The burning fire lit at the beginning of the record finally engulfs and overtakes everything at the very end. Eyes open, go again.
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‘Ultra Truth’ is out now.
