Following the spellbinding and ecstatic ‘Contains Multitudes’, electronic maverick James Holden has shared a second single called ‘Common Land’. The track is lifted from Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities, his first record in nearly six years which arrives on March 31st through his own Border Community. Of ‘Common Land’, Holden comments:

“The title comes from the British Library bird recordings I wrote the track around, but obviously references the idea that all land is everyones and we are all born with the right to roam or rave on it. I think who and what is allowed on the land tells you a lot about how this place is run, and for who.

Personally I think anything a rich person claims as ‘theirs’ is stolen off the rest of us and there’s nowhere that’s more obvious than the English countryside. Imagine! – the state protects the right of these cretins to fence off thousands of acres for their barbaric hobbies while ancient traditions like communities coming together to get high and dance in the woods are criminalised!

Everything is upside down and we need to fix it.”

‘Common Land’ features Christopher Duffin on sax and it comes with an accompanying video made by Innerstrings. Watch it below.

Photo: Laura Lewis

Nearly six years on from the release of The Animal Spirits, electronic maverick James Holden is back with his fourth album. Entitled Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities, it arrives on March 31st through his own Border Community. “I wanted this to be my most open record, uncynical, naive, unguarded, the record teenage me wanted to make,” Holden said of the album. “I used to balance my clock-radio on a wardrobe to catch the faint pirate FM signals from the nearest city, dreaming of what raves would be like when I could finally escape and become a New Age traveller.”

Unlike the previous record that saw Holden assemble and perform for the first time accompanied by a full band, Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities is described as “more of a continuous sound collage, artfully juxtaposing audio worlds in his own inimitable manner”. Holden uses his own samples taken from recordings of his own performances on the modular synth, keyboard, organ, piano and even his childhood violin. The album also features guest contributions from members of the Animal Spirits live band, including drummer Tom Page, tabla-championing percussionist Camilo Tirado, multi-instrumentalist Marcus Hamblett and saxophonist Christopher Duffin.

Along with the album news, Holden has also shared lead single ‘Contains Multitudes’, a spellbinding and ecstatic track clocking at almost ten minute long . Speaking about it Holden comments:

“I’d been looking at John Stezaker’s collages, where things collide and it feels like it opens a window into them, thinking a lot about musical approaches to that idea, then the end part of this just appeared in my head as I listened to the loops of the beginning part. The two songs are opposite musics but also completely contained inside one another.”

Listen to ‘Contains Multitudes’ below.