Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	82/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Drowned in Sound	8/10
Dummy	8/10
Fact
The Guardian
Mojo
Now
Pitchfork	8.0/10

Glass Swords is the debut studio album by Scottish producer Russell Whyte under his alias of Rustie, released by Warp in 2011. The album was produced and recorded between 2008 and 2010 by Whyte, partially in his father's home in Glasgow, Scotland and partly in his own home in London, England. The album contains vocal work from Whyte as well as London based producer Nightwave. The final six months of the production sessions involved Whyte attempting to choose and edit which tracks he felt were worth releasing on the final version of Glass Swords.

Glass Swords is a musically diverse album that critics found hard to classify as anything specific other than electronic music. The track "Ultra Thizz" was released as a single in September 2011 before the album's release in October of the same year. Re-worked versions of the songs "Surph" and "After Light" were released as singles in 2012 with new vocalists. The album received positive reviews from critics and was listed as one of the best albums of 2011 by The Guardian, The Wire and Mixmag and shortlisted for the Scottish Album of the Year Award in 2012.

Whyte stated that he began working on the album in "2008 maybe" and worked on it for a two-year period.Glass Swords was recorded in Whyte's father's house in Glasgow and in his home in London after Whyte had moved there. The album's music was developed with Whyte not having a strong idea for it, noting that he was "just making tracks and not really thinking too much of it as being an album". The album was created using Ableton on a personal computer along with a midi guitar controller, a midi keyboard, keyboard, electric guitar and a microphone. To give the album an analogue sound, Whyte used compressors and tape distortion plugins to get the tracks what he described as a "sort of warmth". Vocals on the album were done by Whyte on the track "Surph" while his girlfriend Nightwave performed some of the backing vocals. Whyte described his music as trying to channel "good energy, just love and peace and happiness and joy. That's what I want from my music, and that's what I want other people to feel."

...
Wikipedia