LOCUST Unveils New Album SPECTRAL+ Through TODO Records, Announces Live Dates

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The iconic English electronic musician's album moves between drone and pop songcraft with orchestral strings and signature synth work.

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Locust, the project of English electronic musician Mark Van Hoen, has released a new album, Spectral+, available now via TODO Records. Across ten tracks, the record moves between oceanic drone and pop songcraft, threading orchestral strings and understated guitars through Van Hoen's signature synth work.

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Speaking about the new album, Mark shares, 'This record contains a broad spectrum of songs that are an assimilation of my influences and my own earlier music. It's contemplative, sometimes melancholy, sometimes abrasive and pastoral.'

The album follows a run of singles that previewed its range: the string-laden 'White Light,' downbeat 'Soul Sky' with Queens rapper Griff Spex, and 'Long Distance Lover,' featuring Slowdive's Neil Halstead on guitar.

Spectral+ follows significant anticipation from devotees of the project since Van Hoen assembled a new live configuration, featuring musician and KCRW/NTS Radio DJ Olive Kimoto on lead vocals, with whom he has been premiering new material across select U.S. dates since September—including headlining Perfectly Imperfect 's Elsewhere takeover, And Always Forever Festival, and Flower Moon Festival—marking their first live performances since supporting Massive Attack in the 90s.

In recent years, the project has cultivated a cult following, with audiences comprising both those who remember Van Hoen's tours with Autechre and Aphex Twin and a younger generation discovering Locust via the trip-hop revival, social media visibility, and a new wave of cloud rap artists sampling his work.

This fall, Locust will appear live across major cities in the U.S. and UK to celebrate the release of Spectral+.

September 11 - 2220 Arts + Archives - Los Angeles, CA

September 14 - Elsewhere (Rooftop) - Brooklyn, NY

September 24 - Moth Club - London, UK

September 26 - The Glad Cafe - Glasgow, UK

Shape Of Another (Vocals: Olive Kimoto, Rap: Griff Spex)

Long Distance Lover (Vocals: Natasha Morrow)

All of them (Vocals: Nick Holton)

White Light (Vocals: Olive Kimoto)

Soul Sky (Vocals: Olive Kimoto, Rap: Griff Spex)

No Space For Love (Vocals: Olive Kimoto)

Love Stays (Vocals: Omotola)

Face It! (Vocals: Natalie Foucauld)

Going Nowhere (Vocals: Olive Kimoto)

Midori/Falls Away From Me (Vocals: Natasha Morrow)

Mark Van Hoen's project Locust has been in existence since the early 1990s, acclaimed for its singular permutations which have taken in everything from IDM (Van Hoen has previously played shows with The Aphex Twin and Autechre), My Bloody Valentine, Trip Hop to Eno, and its latest line-up began to take shape in 2024.

'Olive Kimoto (vocals, keyboards) instigated all this. I was playing a solo show in September 2024, and she came to that - she had been running a club called Heaven or Los Angeles, a Cocteau Twins reference which I immediately liked. We met, and she said how much she liked my music. She did a two-hour radio special with me on my music, and we decided to collaborate.'

The new Locust played their first show in 2025, the first show back since opening for Massive Attack in the 90s, and since then they have fleshed out new material for a new album, Spectral+, with parts added as developed onstage.

'We're establishing this identity as a live band - we've really bonded, all really good friends, all rooting for it. People can see we're a tight band, they're not hired hands.'

The band also includes Derek Mabra on guitar and Jaelyn Valero on drums.

Spectral+, which builds on the success of the previous Locust albums, is an eclectic, uniquely slanted collection of songs that use classic influences as jumping-off points into fresh waters. The album title reflects the sheer variegation, the range of colour across these songs, as well as implying something of the sense of spectres of pop's past.

'I'm much more interested in songs, these days – the songwriting process,' says Van Hoen. So, 'Shape Of Another', with its heavy, radioactive buzz, reminds faintly of The Bug as well as echoes of very early Locust material. 'Long Distance Lover', with its chromium neo-synthpop and echoing guitar figurines, rings out with Neil Halstead's unmistakable guitar, while 'All Of Them' feels like epic pop from a parallel universe, with vocals from Nick Holton of the group Black Hearted Brother (a project with Mark Van Hoen & Neil Halstead).

There's a dazzling intervention from left field in the shape of rapper Griff Spex, who appears on two tracks, including 'Soul Sky', with its clustered backbeat and siren loop. 'He contacted me because he loved my very early music - the first album. His own music has an industrial electronic edge to it. He's from Queens, close to the home of rap music - he's a real New Yorker and likes investigating different styles of music.'

'No Space For Love' features a blaze of old school synths in a fresh context (Van Hoen was impacted as a kid by the 70s productions of Giorgio Moroder ), while 'Going Nowhere' reminds a little of Boards Of Canada in its celestial trails of electronics, rolling percussion, and reverberant, existentially forlorn vocals. The reproachful 'Face It', which features words no man cares to hear, 'you are not doing enough', combines textures, including idiosyncratic droplets of guitar to create a weave like no other. Finally, the aristocratic swell of 'In The Service Of Others', suffused with a sort of defiant melancholy, its closest musical relation is Brian Eno's 'Spider And I'.

Active since the early 1990s, what has gratified Van Hoen about playing live with Locust over the last several months is the demographic of their audience, many of whom are under 30. 'It's a phenomenon of what's been happening on the internet. I guess it's the same as what happened to the Krautrockers when they found themselves discovered by a younger generation. The good will out.'

Photo Credit: Pooneh Ghana [Download Hi-Res]

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwmusic/article/LOCUST-Returns-with-SPECTRAL-Album-via-TODO-Records-20260911)._