The time has arrived. Having signaled his intent at the start of 2011 with the Avalanche EP – his first dancefloor-focused release for a number of years – PHOTEK has since gone on to deliver the Aviator EP, a much-hyped DJ-Kicks release for !K7, and now… Now is the time for the artist album. Now is the time for KU:PALM.

“I made a conscious decision not to jump straight in with another album, I wanted to come back with the EP’s and get the release flow going again. I knew that if I did that, and approached with an open mind, the music and the album would take its course. As it did start to take shape it felt like it was sitting halfway between Modus Operandi and Solaris – which I felt was a good place to be. Now it’s finished, it might well be my favourite album to date.”

With ‘Modus Operandi’ and ‘Solaris’ both regarded as seminal releases of their time – the word ‘classic’ is no over-statement – this is the message from a producer who has been there and done it all, and is feeling more inspired than ever.

Over the past 20-years Rupert Parkes has been on a sonic-journey that’s seen him explore all corners of electronic music. Often surprising, always original, it was in 1995 that he released his first Photek release – the still-amazing ‘Natural Born Killa’ EP for Goldie’s Metalheadz. It was a release that transcended the sound of drum’n’bass at the time and his deeper, more intricate take on D’n’B/Jungle went on to form a whole new sub-genre for the scene. Fast-forward to 2012 and he’s just as well know for his ambient works, cinematic scores and love of house music, and it’s this open-minded approach to sound that has revived so much of his passion for the dance floor.

“I just really like how diverse clubland is in 2012. It seems like everyone from the old school to the newbies are open to anything – and that is a place that I feel very comfortable. I had to take some time out for a few years as I just didn’t feel like my music fitted in, I was like a square peg in a round hole – and then the last few years completely changed, there’s a real freedom and excitement in bass music once again. People like Maxxi Soundsystem, Bok Bok and Grenier – their approach to making music is exactly where I’m at.”

Despite this enthusiasm for the new wave of exciting talent, Parkes has drawn inspiration from both the old and new, delivering an album that is defined by new ideas and superior sonics – not genre classification. He explains, “This album had to be the right listening experience for the headphone listeners as much as on a club soundsystem. That was a new experience for me because we had to make judgement calls to take that into account during the mix. Some stereo elements that sound amazing on headphones simply vanish on a mono soundsystem but I feel we got the right balance in the end.”

Varying in tempos and ranging in influence, recent tracks such as ‘Aviator’, ‘Sleepwalking’ (feat/ Linche) and ‘This Love’ (feat Ray La Montagne) all feature, sitting alongside a variety of brand new material. But as Photek says himself, “Don’t think. Feel.”

TRACKLISTING

1. Signals
2. Quadrant
3. Aviator
4. Pyramid
5. Shape Charge
6. Munich
7. Quevedo
8. Mistral
9. Oshun
10. Sleepwalking feat. Linche
11. One Of A Kind Feat. Breakage
12. This Love (feat. Ray La Montagne)