Barbarossa unveils new single "Awakeners Awaken Us"

"Awakeners Awaken Us" is Barbarossa's first single of 2021, arriving after last year's "Iris2Iris", "Recliner", "Make It Through" and "Always Free".

Barbarossa, real name James Mathé, says of the new track, "The song is basically about a relationship that I went through when I was just starting out as an adult. At the time it was all-consuming and I couldn’t see how I could recover when it ended. With perspective on it now though I can see how it helped me to know when I found the right person and how the experience taught me so much about when things don’t go to plan and that it just means to let go of outcome and trust that things will work out as they are meant to."

Love Here Listen will follow Barbarossa's 2018 album Lier. Mathé worked on the new songs with producer Ghost Culture (Daniel Avery, Kelly Lee Owens, Falle Nioke) at his Margate studio.

The pair used a limited number of vintage synths, including a Mono Poly, Korg MS-20, a Roland SH-101 and a Juno 108, and recorded it on Mathé's Fostex R8 tape recorder. He says of the process, "It was probably the most stress-free record to date and so much fun just messing around with synth arps. It’s easy with James as we really understand each other and I trust him totally. He lives five minutes walk along the seafront from me. We even jumped in the sea a couple of times after lunch."