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2LP
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SEPTIC 004LP
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The Scandal of Time bookends a prolific period of experimentation for Sam Shackleton and follows a raft of collaborations (with Wacław Zimpel, Heather Leigh, and Scotch Rolex this year alone) with what amounts to his first new solo album since 2021. Shackleton's been edging away from the dancefloor for about a decade now, exploring alternative tuning systems, modern classical sounds and non-Western rhythms. The Scandal of Time works not just as a précis but a daring leap forward, mixing ghosted, traditional, German folk songs with heart-piercing basslines, xenharmonic percussion and open-ended drones, on what promises to be his last solo release for a while. Anna Gerth recites a familiar 16th-Century German folk song on "Eine Dunkle Wolke," singing distinctly over lathery, lysergic electronics and skittering drums. When sub tones cut through the mix, they're not there for heft, but to enhance the meditative richness of the composition. It's almost trip-hop in an oblique way, not the kind of raked-over fluff that's hovering into view again - but authentically psychedelic gear spiked with cracked mirror oddness of the earliest Mo'Wax deployments. Shackleton freezes and granulates that momentum even during the album's most vaporous moments; "There is a Seed" and "The Dying Regime" are knotty propositions, using vocals as uncanny whispers rather than hooks. On the former, disembodied words curl around rubbery hand drums and gummy electronic stings, and on the latter, Shackleton stretches words into choral chants, letting levitational South Asian rhythms cook slowly with thick bass and spine-tingling folk hums. When Gerth returns on "Es Fiel ein Reif," she's transported into the world of the romantic poets, reciting a 19th Century song-poem from German writer and folk song researcher Anton Wilhelm von Zuccalmaglio, who claimed that the lyrics were taken from early history. Here, Shackleton and Gerth dip in and out of sinuous surrealism with thumb piano, metallophone vortexes, ghost choirs and stirring claps. "Faraway Flowers" follows, obscuring voices beneath echoed piano rolls and digitized rainfall, drawing us closer and closer to the album's entrancing conclusion. "Abend Wird Es Wieder" is a perfectly bizarre finale, an alluring haze of stoic vocals and fictile instrumentation that sounds cinematic without adhering to any rules. The eerie, hauntological world Shackleton has created here is a testament to his years of work on experimental bass music's fringes.
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12"
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HJP 096EP
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Killer EP. Next-level Shackleton. Taking off from Beaugars Seck's foundational sabar drum rhythms -- recorded by Sam in Dakar in February 2020 -- Shackleton has constructed a trio of intricately layered, luminous, enchanted, epic excursions. The second is more dazzled and meandering, with jellied bass, insectile detail, and discombobulated jabbering; the third is more liquid, fleet of foot, and psychedelic, with a grooving b-line and funky keyboard stabs, scrambled eastern strings and hypnotic vocalese. The harmonium in "The Overwhelming Yes" sounds like Nico blowing in chillily from up the desert shore. The overall mood is wondrous, twinkling with light, onwards-and-upwards; an uncanny, dubwise mix of the ancient and the futuristic. Mark Ernestus's "Version" is stripped, trepidatious, mystical, and stranger still, with just a snatch of the original melody, extra distortion and delay, and crystal-clear drum sound. Twenty minutes of startlingly original music, with Shackleton the maestro at the top of his game, and a characteristically devilish dub by Mark Ernestus. Mastered by Rashad Becker; handsomely sleeved. Sick to the nth. Love 4 ever.
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12"
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HJP 052EP
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2016 repress. Sam Shackleton stalks deeper into the sub-loaded unknown. From his Fabric mix CD, "Deadman" turns paradox and paranoia into dancefloor fire. This is rolling, dread techno of breathtaking heat and humidity, spurred by hectoring congas and thick-set subs, amidst a teeming soundscape of drones, field recordings and oblique vocal textures. Kevin Martin adopts his King Midas Sound guise for an expansive remix which reveals his lineage in noise, industrial and isolationist ambient. Mastered by Rashad Becker with artwork by Zeke Clough.
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2x12"
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HJP 053EP
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2022 restock. Two brilliant Shackleton tracks with remixes by T++ and Baron Mordant. On "Fireworks," the mood is malevolent with synth shrapnel crisscrossing a stately, choral progression. T++'s remix enacts a rhythmic necromancy, its brittle, emaciated breakbeats shunting forward ravenously. "Undeadman" raises "Deadman." Midi signals from the original were sent to synths; sounds and effects were recorded separately and rearranged. Mordant Music re-fashions it into an epic of bad-trip kosmische. Designed by Will Bankhead, the sleeve layers different Zeke Clough artworks, in spot UV varnish.
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CD
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PERL 076CD
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Surprise, surprise.... after several excellent releases on his imprint Skull Disco, Berlin transplant Sam Shackleton sends out some drones through Perlon. Shackleton's maverick take on big bass lines and complex beats doesn't fit into any easy categories. Shackleton has been carving out his own brand of eclecticism so far with intricate, snaking percussion, hypnotic melodies, seriously deep bass lines and dubwise sensibilities. With tribal percussion up against electronic screeeeeee, and some bass-y low-end backing ring modulators and other avant garde accessories, Three EPs is a milestone already.
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3x12"
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PERL 076LP
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