Listen to lead track ‘I Know I Am Petty’ now.
Oakland-based artist and DJ Russell E.L. Butler returns to Ghostly International’s sister label Spectral Sound with a new EP, Petty.
Butler describes Petty as their “most ‘functional’ techno record to date”, stating: “I wanted to create something thick, something bangin’, something cathartic, something that makes you punch the floor.”
“The title, Petty, is a reminder to myself to reject the performance of respectability,” Butler continues. “As a light-skinned, educated, able-bodied, black person that grew up in financial privilege, there is an expectation that people like me should be ‘safe’ black people to interact with.”
“Some of us can pass as white, some of us can code switch from one vernacular to another, depending on who we’re around, some of us can perform the expectations of white supremacy, in order to get ahead in this world. To me, Petty is a rejection of this performance.”
Last year, Butler appeared on the Spectral Sound compilation Spectral 139 with the track ‘Run Away With My Heart’, and released the excellent The Home I’d Build For Myself And All My Friends on the San Francisco-based record label Left Hand Path.
Petty arrives via Spectral Sound on February 1 and is available to pre-order now. Check out the cover art and tracklist below.
Tracklist:
01. ‘Gulf Stream’
02. ‘I Know I Am Petty’
03. ‘Tree Frog Whistle’
04. ‘Offset In The Shadow’
