On the cover of his new, fourth solo album, Devon Welsh is depicted as an action hero: muscles swollen, veins bulging, a figure of human power in a desolate dystopian landscape.

The album is called Come With Me If You Want To Live, a line lifted from the Terminator movies. It's the Canadian artist's response to contemporary life in his adopted home of the USA; the sentiments at play in his minimal, mournful music turning from the personal to the societal.

In conversation with Anthony Carew on The International Pop Underground, Welsh talks about the album, the apocalypse, his days in his former outfit Majical Cloudz, and his hoped-for future as a totally jacked dude.

"Once I saw the cover, I thought: 'I need to start working out in order to become that myself'," Welsh says. "My fantasy is that I'll be able to bring it into real life. Just in case there is an apocalypse, then I'll be ready to be that action hero."

Feature image: Nika Roza Danilova