Richard Dawson⤬

Pop in your earpiece, close your eyes and embrace the wonders (and horrors) of augmented reality and prepare to travel 500 years into the future as Richard Dawson returns with … The Ruby Cord.

The new album is - perhaps - the final part of a trilogy that started with the pre-medieval world of Peasant, was brought back to the present day with 2020 and - possibly - concludes in the future with Dawson’s seventh (or is it sixth?) studio album. After recent collaborations with Finnish metal innovators Circle and his work with Hen Ogledd, this is a return to Dawson’s own world with seven tracks that plunge us into an unreal, fantastical and at times sinister future where social mores have mutated, ethical and physical boundaries have evaporated… a place where you no longer need to engage with anyone but yourself and your own imagination. It’s a leap into a future that is well within reach, in some cases already here.

While 2020 dealt in social realism with explorations of testy football matches, the fallacy of work-life balance and therapeutic forms of repetitive exercise, The Ruby Cord shakes off the limitations of so-called real life and delves headlong into a (sort of) sci-fi world where human society has collapsed and morphed into something distinctly less solid. “So many of us are moving into these fantasy worlds,” says Dawson. “Whether it's actual constructed virtual realities, computer worlds, or retreating into even more fantastical realms…. conspiracy theories, nationalism, amateur football punditry. People construct their own world because this one is so flawed.