[3] Compassion was announced on 30 March 2017, and accompanied by another track from the album, "Arms Out", featuring a video directed by Sam Wiehl and Forest Swords himself.

[5] A further single featuring two tracks from the Compassion album recording sessions—"Congregate" and "Free"—was released on 28 September, with all proceeds going to relief work in Mexico and Puerto Rico.

[7] Barnes cited "communication" as a central theme of the record, claiming "It's what I like exploring musically as well, sometimes you can say quite a lot with an instrumental part that you maybe can't say with language or lyrics that are prescriptive.

[8] In an interview with The Vinyl Factory, he said he chose the album’s cover photograph because ‘It just seemed to sum up what I try and make with the music: something that’s timeless… and something that veers between different emotions’, describing it as a ‘visual metaphor’ for the ‘feel and themes of the record’.

[9] Barnes describes a book on Francis Bacon’s paintings and ’the photos they found on his studio floor by John Deakin’ as a ‘singular… style reference for the artwork’ on Compassion.

[10] Q magazine gave the album a score of 4 out of 5 and said it "unfolds like a journey through a bustling soundscape of found sounds, instrumental loops and post-dubstep production".