shackleton - fireworks ep (2x12")

...but it's leaked.

01. fireworks

02. fireworks (T++ remix)

03. undeadman

04. undeadman (mordant music remix)

it's nothing groundbreaking for him, but it's very nice (especially the mordant remix)

  Quote

The second of two Shackleton releases from Honest Jon's, this time featuring two new tracks and triumphant remixes by T++ and Baron Mordant.

 

In "Fireworks", the detonations are internalized, swallowed like the establishment tongue at the start: the mood is malevolent, not celebratory. Synth shrapnel criss-crosses a stately, choral progression, before ticking hi-hats and plate-shifting bass count-down the percussion pressure-drop. Galloping kicks and clopping tabla tussle with each other, in and out of alignment: the kind of ghosted Middle Eastern instrumentation introduced by the Skull Disco classic "Hamas Rule", seeping through. Soundsystem psychodrama in inimitable Shackleton style.

 

For the T++ remix, Shackleton's music seems a perfect foil, its fleshy, ultra-vivid drum constructions ripe for demolition and rebuild; and sure enough this mix enacts a kind of rhythmic necromancy, its brittle, emaciated breakbeats shunting forward nastily, ravenously. (Incidentally, perhaps, there is a titular invocation of a much earlier T++ incarnation, buried in the late-90s: the "Aussen Vor EP", by Dynamo.)

 

Likewise, "Undeadman" raises Deadman. Midi signals from the original were sent to synths; sounds and effects were recorded separately, and rearranged; new ideas came through. The sound-world is enriched, more three-dimensional; the arrangement is looser, more spry, with neat additions and elaborations, notably an impish minor-key piano flourish. Ravishing in its own right, Undeadman is a fascinating indication of where Shackleton's work may go next. Mordant Music - whose eponymous label first introduced Shackleton - re-fashions it into a bona fide epic. The side evolves from scouring, bad-trip kosmische into an out-and-out dance wrecker, with a massive punky-reggae-party bassline astride walls of saw-toothed synth noise.

I love how Torsten Profrock seems to have built in some level of piracy-proof detail: This has to be about the 10th time I've searched for something of his on filesharing networks and people have labeled it as "Tandand" instead of T++. Hilarious.

Was just looking at this today when scoping out some tracks...

http://www.digital-tunes.net/releases/fireworks/1

Appears to already be released, at least on this retailer.

It's alright.

sounds like a little bit of a progression to me, much more sci fi than his other works...

yeah

I like this a lot...