Richard Fearless announces new album Future Rave Memory

Fearless discusses the tole of the unique geography of his East London studio on LP

Richard Fearless has announced the follow-up to his widely acclaimed last techno project Deep Rave Memory, complementing it with the companion album Future Rave Memory.

With influences from kosmische, ambient, acid and drone, both albums were recorded at the same time at Fearless’ Metal Box studio, which overlooks the River Thames. The music drew strong inspiration from Fearless’ long-standing obsession with music played in desolate settings, which he has explored both musically and visually.

The second album, ‘Future Rave Memory’, is a self-described dystopian ambient album, set in “an era when humanity is reckoning with its outsized place in the natural world”. 

Fearless spoke in detail on the background to both projects: 

“Metal Box, my studio, is located where the River Lea converges with the Thames, near East India Docks; it’s a Ballardian landscape, which constantly inspires. ‘Tamas’, the opening song, is a Sanskrit word that means darkness, which some believe is the origin of the name Thames.

On my way to the studio I pass some of the most deprived areas of London, many of which sit under the gaze of the financial center of Canary Wharf. I cycle under shadows cast by colossal data storage buildings that feed the corporate machine of the Docklands.

I think of the East India Company and the events their activities set in motion. When the wind is right, I smell the Tate & Lyle Factory downstream and contemplate the trans-Atlantic slave trade that fed this country’s love of those white crystals. On the other side of the Thames is the Millennium Dome, hovering mostly idle apart from the billboards flashing ads in unison after dark. 

I hear the constant screeching of metal-on-metal from the adjacent steel factory, and the drone of flights to and from City Airport. I sit among their ambience, feeling the pulse of the city, with the dark water a constant presence. The energy from this junction where two tidal rivers collide is powerful; it seems to heal. I think of the German word ‘Strom’, which means the flow of electricity, the flow of water.”

‘Future Rave Memory’ will be released digitally on November 5 with vinyl following on December 8.