Photo by Visionist and Peter De Potter
“I am constantly told I am niche, so I have taken it on myself to be clearer about what I am trying to do and where I am coming from,” says electronic music producer Louis Carnell, aka Visionist, over video call from south London as he discusses the more pronounced appearance of his own singing voice on his latest album A Call To Arms. “Trying to communicate as best I can is part of my journey. I have also been told you should never assume that everyone understands you because I used to get lost in the fact I wasn’t understood. I had conversations with people outside of music and came to the realisation that it is about communicating your story effectively. It is on you to make sure people understand what you do.”
The albums he has chosen for his Baker’s Dozen take us from his choir-singing youth to his exposure to wider music, to locking-in to Hans Zimmer as a music student, his career through club music and to his recent focus on song-craft and the lyric. While much of his output has been conceptual erring on the side of opacity, aligning himself with experimental and future strands of electronic music, his brief involvement with grime was a narrative he couldn’t shake.
Visionist is eager to tell his story, his journey, and emphasise the importance of his experience navigating the world through his artistry. As a working-class, mixed-race musician he is keen to focus on the multitude of interests, conversations and influences that shaped him, rather than fit his experience into a single narrative devoid of the complications of life. The versatility and open-mindedness that typifies his music are part of wider social practice that defies prescribed routes and endpoints, constantly working in the liminal space between experience and genre.
Visionist’s new album A Call To Arms is out now via Mute. To begin reading his Baker’s Dozen, click the picture of him below.
