Shackleton 3 EPs

Even at Sam Shackleton's most kinetic moments of dub-based munitions deployment, there has existed a fervent experimentalism in everything he has undertaken. Whether it has been the laissez faire approach to making his productions palpable club successes or a casual disregard for the very structures of what may deem a track to be called dubstep, it has been obvious from the first that inherent in Shackleton is to forge his own unique path through his music. Shackleton has been instrumental in turning on many techno heads to the charms of dubstep via some of the hybrid, cross genre pollinations on his Skull Disco imprint, but what sealed it was Ricardo's two part epic remix of “Blood On My Hands”.

Since his move to Berlin a couple of years ago his tracks and remixes have taken on part of the deep cultural weight of techno and house that imbue the city's musical persona, so it seems fitting that he is now at home on Perlon, a label synonymous with the sounds of the city. For his first full length album Shackleton has given us an aureate, densely layered work that doesn't so much require repeated listening as demands it. For those familiar with Shackleton's productions, 3 Eps is no departure from anything he has done, but as a whole shows a much grander ambition. From the cohesive flow of the nine tracks to the locked grooves on the vinyl, 3 Eps has been designed to be a listening experience and it is one that yields further curiosities upon each listening. Take for example the stream of self help-like commentary that litters the album. Compared to the usual, brooding, inevitability of doom metered out by Vengeance Tenfold on other Shackleton cuts these light hearted affirmations instill in the tracks a sense of hopeful empiricism. Opener “Negative Thoughts” attests not to the saturnine side of the producers' productions we've seen in the past but instead calls to let go of cynical ideas. “It's Time For Love” holds an ethereal beauty in its fathomless well of bass and at its zenith on “Asha In The Tabernacle”, in between calls to “sense it, know it, let it be”, we hear a refrain from “He's Got The Whole World In His Hands” leaking in to the mix. Though this can't help but raise the corners of your mouth into a grin, it doesn't seem out of place here, amidst an album that is not such much steeped in lushness and soaring, ecclesiastic reveries but in an exploratory sense of the unknown.
Old world Asiatic sounds continue to play a lead role in Shackleton's work, be it the Eastern timbre of the drums that are ever prevalent, the thin, brassy horns that have been a part of tracks like “El Din” and “Hamas Rule” and here are transmuted by more synthetic sounds or the very air of mysticism that hangs over each track like a fine mist.
In its experimental regard it can be loosely likened to another of 2009's standout releases, the Moritz von Oswald Trio's “Vertical Ascent”. Though 3 Eps may outwardly be more easily approachable, both are fashioned from recondite percussion programming and spend long periods of time teasing out central themes and ideas from studied, repeated rhythms. Shackleton's album however is saturated with the deep thrum of bass patterns, the prevailing essence of dubstep that has stayed with him while he has gradually started erasing the lines between it and other genres. However this doesn't equate to any of the tracks being suitable for club play, but then that is hardly the point here. Instead this is the result of a producer displaying the mastery of their unique sound and further setting themselves apart from their rivals, creating in the process an album that is timelessly classic.