Shackleton - Three EPs (2009)

Lancashire native/Berlin resident Sam Shackleton just returned with a new album, so here's an old one.  I started listening to Shackleton a few years back in a phase of trying to tackle more recent, interesting electronic music, and absolutely loved the dark, spacious production.

 

Three EPs, Shackleton's only release for Perlon and despite the title counted as his first album, was released on three 12"s (hence the title) or one CD.  Minimal beats, low frequency bass, jittery Middle Eastern-style percussion, doomy organ, hissing clouds of electronics and samples from what sounds like a self-help lecture all combine to provide an immersive, hypnotic hour of unsettling darkness.  At the same time, oddly enough, as many listeners have noted, it's oddly calming, and very satisfying.  During its 2000s vogue, the more commercial end of this sort of stuff was known as dubstep; to my ears though it's just very good atmospheric, percussive electronica in the tradition of Zoviet France and Muslimgauze.

link

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