Shackleton

There's no Shackleton mention it seems. Three EPs is incredible music, tribal percussion dark ambient atmosphere and it's Techno. Bass is huge. People say it sounds like Muslimgauze, which albums?

http://img.hipersonica.com/2009/12/shackleton-three-eps.jpg

I need more music like this.

Raime EP is cool too, very promising.

He's doing the next Fabriclive, I think.

You'll definitely find some discussion on the dubstep threads and some other dance music threads. (Not saying he doesn't deserve his own.)

So who is Vengeance Tenfold?

Odd I never noticed there's no thread about him.

There could be a musical relation to Muslimgauze, not really know which songs or albums (and his output is exhaustingly vast) but I do recall hearing some Muslimgauze in the past that fitted the bill: Deep bass, tribal drumming, dark ambience.

Also recommend: Demdike Stare, The Caretaker, Ramadanman

Also been listening to this record this week:

http://boomkat.com/downloads/346280-ensemble-economique-psychical

Some tracks are reminiscent of Shackleton's style.

Also (obviously) Mordant Music and Badawi.

Of the list you gave, I was able to see both Demdike Stare and The Caretaker this year. Well worth it.

An oldie but goodie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORN4Gfrkn2A

http://www.thewire.co.uk/images/artists/shackleton/COVER322.jpg

as I mentioned elsewhere, the forthcoming Horsepower Productions is great for old-style dubstep given a good bit of modern spit'n'polish.

Vengeance Tenfold is the vocalist from Death is Not Final (on the rope tightens). I don't know if he does anything beyond vocals, but I think vocals is the main implication.

The Wire's interview explains he's an old friend of Shackleton's. When I asked who he was, it wasn't as a query as to his contributions (which are kind of obvious), but as in "who is this guy, is this his only excursion into music, does he have a name he uses that is not Vengeance Tenfold?"

But yes, read the interview, it's great.

Ok thanks. I just found these three by accident the last week and they are outstanding. Sort of a 21th century dub techno based on ancient african rhythm? Seriously deep stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miguEsoq3d4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnTkuHr1oNE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gb4RDySki4

T++'s Wireless belongs here too, even if I still can't parse the thing. I'll keep listening.

I prefer the earlier Skull stuff to 3 EPs tbh.

Those first two are from this comp (in case you didn't already know):

http://www.discogs.com/Various-Tradi-Mods-Vs-Rockers-Alternative-Takes-On-Congotronics/release/2637780

Also some news:

http://www.honestjons.com/label.php?Forthcoming=1

Love Mordant Music a whole lot, so pretty keen on that first one.

T++ is much more of a junglist thing i think than shackleton

on a vaguely similar "Sort of a 21th century dub techno based on ancient african rhythm?" tip you might enjoy this Kangding Ray tune from last year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ufQ-ZghC3I

rhythmically T++ reminds me a lot of that early 00s stuff people were calling "sublow", sort've the ravier end of grime -- stuff like Jon E Cash, Geeneus, Musical Mobb, that kinda thing

ot but Mordant Music also has a collab w/ Ekoplekz apparently due out this year, should be big

He's doing the next Fabriclive, I think.

It's Fabric 55. Pretty cool stuff although I think Fabric should veto the next guy who wants to do a mix of all his own material now that there have been three in the span of what, a year? Year and a half?

1 Come Up
2 Moon Over Joseph's Burial
3 Hypno Angel
4 Visontele
5 Blood Rhythm With Wishy Drones
6 Operatic Waves
7 Closeness To Nature
8 Negative Thoughts
9 Death is Not Final
10 International Fires
11 Paper
12 Deadman
13 Point One, Sense It
14 Man On a String Part 1
15 Man On a String Part 2
16 Ice
17 Busted Spirit
18 Bottles
19 New Dawn
20 Something Has Got To Give
21 Massacre
22 Stripped

I liked the mix a lot though, hadn't heard any Shackleton since Sound Bwoy's Ashes so it was all new to me

14 Man On a String Part 1

^ most interesting part of the mix, in my ears anyway

dmr are you counting the villalobos one? that was a lot longer ago than a year + a half i think... or has there been another one apart from omar s

there have been three in the span of what, a year? Year and a half?

3 years - http://www.discogs.com/Ricardo-Villalobos-Fabric-36/release/1061625 released in 07

Sometimes own material works best. I don't see an issue and don't see why Fabric should veto producers who are at the level who do it - all three producers who've done it are exceptional

wow villalobos was that long ago. my bad.

I guess I'd like to actually hear a DJ mix from some of these guys instead of a quasi-album.

that said, I still listen to the Omar-S fabric a ton.

Yeah, it doesn't hurt that the Villalobos and Omar-S mixes are both totally ace in their own right.

the skull disco stuff is great. 3 eps didn't really do anything for me, was kind of a relief to read in his interview with blackdown that he wasn't too fussy on it himself. i'd say the skull stuff is the more muzlimgauzey.

new fabric mix is 75% brilliant. the way the layers and rhythms interlock and shift is just what i've been looking for. i hope he has more of that up his sleeve.

just need to see him live now.

Of the new releases, Fireworks and the T++ remix of the same are definite favorites

Loving these Drawbar Organ EPs. Anyone heard 'em?

^^ Really good.

Shackleton on a NoMeansNo remix album? Whaaa? From their facebook:

Tracklist for the NMN electronic remix album, out later this year:

1 - Deadbeat - The River
2 - Shackleton - Dark Ages
3 - Miles (Demdike Stare) - Rags and Bones
4 - Orphx - Metronome

Woah. Dark Ages, cool.
Shackleton's remix of To Rococo Rot's "Fridays" is his most rock-oriented to date, and it's fantastic. Looking forward to the remix album (EP?)

That remixer list makes me think I should check out that band.

This is most momentous news. (The Shackleton album's ace by the way.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVvn0h93uQw

Now I'm not saying I'm old but that's seriously great

Anyone into the Pinch/Shackleton record? The first four tracks are fantastic, then it gets a bit samey.

all of shackleton is a bit samey, unfortunately

i will say the pinch/shackleton album is much better than the shackleton 2xcd set, partly because of no spoken word and partly also because it still sorta sounds like dubstep as opposed to the dark ambient version of steve reich

but personally i more or less tuned him out after the fabric mix (even though i picked up pinch/shackleton and still listen to it occasionally)

Been listening to the Drawbar Organ EPs quite a bit recently. The organ adds colour and an extra dimension that is sometimes missing in his other stuff. Just need to hear it on a decent sound system and I'll be in 7th-heaven.

Not feeling Music For The Quiet Hour however. Maybe just need to spend some time with it.

i loved the pinch/shackleton collab, like the double cd thing too, but i'm still letting it sink in properly. what i like about him are the mysterious physical spaces that his music evokes - sometimes it's like a fetid breeze blowing through a dark cobwebbed labyrinth, sometimes it's like shadows moving across a de chirico-esque haunted urban space. same sort of feeling as sawII era aphex maybe?

nicely put

that feeling of being in an empty, depopulated zone and yet feeling some sort of strange presence there

He certainly evokes the strongest and strangest mental images of any current dubstep (post-dubstep, whatever) producer. He'd be great at scoring movies I think.

Shackleton live is something quite special. The organ noises do really open his sound palette, but I think that three albums in two years (granted, one was a collaborative effort) is a bit much and a little selectivity would probably edge his releases from being good to essential.

i really love the drawbar organ eps, one of the best things i've discovered from various EOY lists - been listening a lot through hungover fugs this past week

i like music for the quiet hour too but don't feel like i've got a handle on it yet - i love how detailed and intricate it is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfpMPUctTaE

^ i didn't even really know what a drawbar organ was until about a minute ago

that's just a little app that replicates the actual thing btw

wait i am being super dense here

never drink and think

Just listening to the Pinch Shackleton album and wow...

Like, I had no idea either were capable of making something as unerringly pretty as this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtTbrZMPh0s

The recent ep is totally more of the same, but in a totally good way.

Who let Sam a go on Sleazy's music making machines? Good move.

both the Vengeance Tenfold collaboration and this are very, very impressive

https://boomkat.com/products/behind-the-glass-with-anika

suddenly, a new EP! https://boomkat.com/products/furnace-of-guts

This is some of his finest work yet. A real return to form after Sferic Ghost Transmits and Behind The Glass, which weren't very good

I still like those two a lot (imho, he's been on a roll since Freezing Opening Thawing)

Yeah this is really hitting me in a way I haven't felt since the Drawbar Organ pieces.

https://www.factmag.com/2019/08/15/shackleton-tunes-of-negation-album/
https://soundcloud.com/cosmo-rhythmatic/tunes-of-negation-nowhere-ending-sky

This album is so good and the best thing he's done since the Drawbar Organ EPs at least. This technically isn't a Shackleton album but apart from the vocals I'm not really sure what the other musicians are bringing to the table that he couldn't have done himself.

Yes, this is wonderful. It does have more of wide open and ensemble feel than typical for Shackleton, and with all the reedy organ tones it's giving me some similar vibes to the recent James Holden and Amon Tobin albums.

new track on this as well: https://fabricrecords.bandcamp.com/track/shackleton-drawn-and-quartered

This is great too: https://samshackleton.bandcamp.com/album/primal-forms

oh wow

Saw him play live, I dunno, four or five years ago. Most of his set was the top-notch unrelenting tension he's known for, but the end of his set actually was like ten or fifteen minutes of ecstatic release. Not sure if I imagined it, or if it's in his recorded catalogue and I hadn't heard it, or if it really was what it seemed - a treat he rolled out just for a live audience.

ten or fifteen minutes ok probably five

Zimpel's collab with Holden this year is really great too, and his solo album Massive Oscillations.

I'm really liking the new one too. Never heard of this Zimpel chap before so will need to check out more of his work.

thanks for the reminder re: Shackleton/Zimpel!

I was supposed to see that duo do a live set last year but Shackleton fell through and it ended up being a Holden/Zimpel show instead. Kind of a slow start and I wasn’t sure if they’d played live together after having recorded. Good, though

Primal Forms is wonderful. The first full Shackleton album I've unreservedly loved.

Primal Forms is wonderful. The first full Shackleton album I've unreservedly loved.

― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Monday, August 17, 2020 8:03 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Came here to post something similar (although at the time I unreservedly loved Music for the Quiet Hour / Drawbar Organ). I'm a massive Zimpel fan and I think this is a match made in Reichian (Riley-an?) heaven

Yum, another Tunes of Negation album to be released in November
https://thequietus.com/articles/29047-shackleton-tunes-of-negation-like-the-stars-forever-and-ever-album-details

\m/

Primal Forms is an absolutely phenomenal record.

finally listened to it, really good wow! it's jammy in the best way, great energy. reminds me of amon duul lol.

Primal Forms is an absolutely phenomenal record.

― Matt DC, Friday, October 9, 2020 6:47 PM (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

qft

Primal Forms is the witchy neo-krautrock nww-list album I didn’t know i needed this year

I fucking love The Idea of Shackleton but I'm always kind of underwhelmed by the music proper.

Have you heard this one? If you like amon duul ii violin jams you’ll like this. It’s not super sharp or brainy, just good old fashioned psychedelic electronic goodness with some impassioned playing from zimpel. Idk it’s what I want right now, some unpretentious deep state lost in a forest stuff.

I did, yeah. It was pleasant enough but it didn't really grab me. I'll give it another spin soon 'cause I'm definitely all for Amon Düül II violin jams.

There’s one section that goes all in with it (the violin jamming that is). It’s an easy album to sort of let float by and set a mood but i think it also breathes a lot and has great energy.

Yeah this is an amazing album and the best thing he’s done that I’ve heard

the best thing shackleton's done?

or zimpel?

definitely stopped checking shackleton after the fabric mix but i still listen have time for the fabric mix, three eps and skull disco comps

tlg did you grab the Shackleton & Pinch LP before you signed off?

Best single album from Shackleton (incl. the Fabric mix which was my favourite until now).

yeah i did and i still have it. looks like i briefly discussed my impressions of it upthread. eight years ago, which would have been about a year after it came out. i don’t recall exactly how long it took me to find a copy so i don’t know how long i’d had it at that point but i definitely haven’t gone back to it much since then because i can’t recall a single track off it... in fact i don’t even know if I recall a single solo pinch track off the top of my head aside from “qawwali”.

fabric mix on the other hand ... i can practically hear the whole thing in my head ... “you’re beginning to come up come up come up” ... “everyone starts from point one” ... etc

i haven't followed him closely at all. i had some skull disco tracks, "death is not final" and another one. then i was super into "freezing opening thawing." this album though feels more lived in than anything i remember hearing. idk that might be in my head because it's hard to point it why - it just sounds like it's not trying to impress but drawing a lot of strength from a kind of pagan energy, flowing pretty seamlessly, inhabiting in-between spaces very consciously (don't get me wrong, zimpel's playing is pretty impressive in parts, i don't know everything he's playing but i'm sure it's more than just the saxophone, maybe recorders and the violin?). and there's some callbacks to psychedelic music of yore that i appreciate. (i'm sure he was always doing that to some degree and always coming out of a nww / current 93 axis).

https://samshackleton.bandcamp.com/album/tunes-of-negation-like-the-stars-forever-and-ever

With the new Tunes of Negation album and Primal Forms, it feels as though he's finally hitting the heights he had the potential for. lovely stuff.

Agreed. I think anyone who enjoys Primal Forms will vibe with this release as well.

the Tunes of Negation "Like the Stars Forever and Ever" album feels very disorienting

Good mix of Tunes of Negation material, some of it new:

https://soundcloud.com/bleep_bot/bleep-mix-152-shackleton

thanks for the link, I like the mix vv much

Yeah, I've listened to it a few times now, it's fantastic.

I think I just recognised a Werner Herzog sample on the new one (which was briefly and presumably accidentally available to purchase v early).

Furnace of Guts was the last thing I got from him. His latest album material is a bit too coil-y for me, and I've never really been into that ancient England aesthetic. The track simply titled (turku) on Erkin Koray's elektronik Turkuler album from 73 does that mystical vibe for me much better, and rocks much harder with the zurna than any of those pagan-y artists.

The organ stuff is great though, proper rumbling psychedelia.

https://samshackleton.bandcamp.com/album/departing-like-rivers - September 9

immense sounding new release

https://open.spotify.com/album/3rwFk3UFJlRJtTcsnOnlZa?si=KbOVHUPgQnKTVKC9bsp_mQ&utm_source=copy-link&dl_branch=1

oh yeah, I forgot about that - thanks for the reminder

Yeah snagged that on Bandcamp, need to give an ear...

listening to this now, is it produced with Bill laswell?!? Not so familiar with shackleton but really liked the primal drones release, this is much more global ambient than dark ambient at times

Werner Herzog sample fits so neatly into the mood of the proceedings as to be redundant.

different mood this time but still great and innovative. He's a genius, imho.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/09/ernest-shackleton-wrecked-ship-endurance-antarctic

er...

lol

years of clicking on this thread pay off at last (i discover something i was already pointed to outside ilx)

funny, the last Shackleton thing I listened too could have had polar soundscape field recordings as pads

new EP : The Majestic Yes

https://www.discogs.com/release/24118721-Shackleton-The-Majestic-Yes
https://honestjons.com/shop/artist/Shackleton/release/The_Majestic_Yes
https://honestjonsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-majestic-yes

Wow, loving this.

Likewise (and I'd completely missed that it existed, so thanks for posting it).

It's amazing! Probably the best thing he's done since Three EPs. Very Skull Discoish

this album is absolutely immense Sunday music

https://ra.co/news/78568

Clip sounds good! Shame about the title though

Shackleton's collaborations are always the best

excited!

is it just me or is this new one ultra weird? i feel like i’ve gotten a bit too used to his tricks, but this one brings back the old “wtf is going on” sensation i’ve been missing since the fabric mix

“serotonin”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbk4oQ_Wncs

Two other new projects, one from last month:
https://modernobscuremusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-other-side-of-devastation

One out today:
https://boomkat.com/products/choose-mortality

xxpost - it didn't feel more left field or less accessible than Departing Like Rivers to me?

lol - it's one of his most approachable in years: https://ra.co/reviews/35435

the new one w/ heather leigh is real good, dude is on a roll

wouldn't say it's ultra weird by his standards but am enjoying it a lot, I generally prefer it when he goes a bit more percussive like back in the skull disco days than when he goes proggy and Coil-ish

I thought the new one was referring to "The Purge of Tomorrow". Too many new Shackletons!

I wish Flesh & The Dream was on Bandcamp

hmm idk sounds different / weirder / more interesting to me!! maybe i have to listen to the prior albums again, but they all sounded to me more or less like a modern (not sure if “bass music”) update on fourth world music

that review is silly btw, never listen to resident advisor

okay! :-)

Bleep Mix with Zimpel
https://soundcloud.com/bleep_bot/bleep-mix-271-shackleton-zimpel

Bleep Mix with Zimpel
https://soundcloud.com/bleep_bot/bleep-mix-271-shackleton-zimpel

thank you x 2!

so this is how we find out that this is released next week!

https://bleep.com/artist/337016-shackleton-wacaw-zimpel-feat-siddhartha-belmannu

single: https://bleep.com/release/396348-shackleton-waclaw-zimpel-the-ocean-lies-between-us
album: https://bleep.com/release/396347-shackleton-wacaw-zimpel-feat-siddhartha-belmannu-in-the-cell-of-dreams

oh, the download is available as soon as you order - released already, then

oh damn - did anyone catch the live show on Sept 13th? London Jazz Cafe ( https://ra.co/events/1749385 )

Sadly not - I was out of London or I would be really regretting not knowing about it!

Have only heard the album a couple of times but I really like it (perhaps not as much as their first, but that's a very high standard).

yeah, a lot more focus on the Indian vocals here - but I like it a lot, too

Saw Shackleton a few months back doing a set around 3am at a Freerotation night at The Cause. It was a bit deep in the night so I can’t recall a huge amount of specifics excpet really enjoying it and that it was on the heavier more techno end of his sound.

New Shackleton!

https://boomkat.com/products/the-scandal-of-time

!

it's... I don't know what I think yet. A more subtle followup to the Anika collab from 2017? (or do I only think that because there's a German singer on there?)

This is my (dis)comfort food! Three EPs chopped up maqam percussion with intermittent ghostly kleinkunkst melodies!

I'm loving this, it's like chopped & screwed Dead Can Dance (in dub)

(the instrumentation, not the vocals)

the shackleton / zimpel / belmannu album is amazing

Yes, so good!

new track we missed last month?

https://www.beatport.com/track/bloody-circumstance/18737536

collaboration: https://sixorgansofadmittance.bandcamp.com/album/jinxed-by-being has 2 preview tracks, https://samshackleton.bandcamp.com/album/jinxed-by-being-2 has one

boomkat piece: https://boomkat.com/products/jinxed-by-being

wait, and we didn't mention this: https://boomkat.com/products/three-hands-of-doom

Love that one on Nyege Nyege, I think we talked about it on some other thread

That six organs collab is out already

Wtf, the hits keep coming. I love Holy Tongue and have high hopes for this -

https://ad93.bandcamp.com/album/the-tumbling-psychic-joy-of-now

was there a preview track when you posted this? (there is now)

Weirdly the whole thing went up on Spotify for a while, then vanished. It’s great.

the Shackletongue album is great indeed!

Love it.

i love it too!

and he's done a mix for nts

https://www.nts.live/shows/guests/episodes/shackleton-28th-august-2024

i think this is the first dj mix of his that i've heard that isn't all his own productions

why does he sound like English isn't his first language

https://crackmagazine.net/article/long-reads/shackleton-in-conversation-al-wootton-holy-tongue/

An extensive podcast interview? Weird.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/138-shackleton-bass-mystery-and-devastating-beauty/id1604094585?i=1000673105713

Really enjoyed this insight into his context and methods, particularly how his collaborations come about. No modular synths for him! Such an affable dude for such ominous art.

we missed to mention this in January: https://samshackleton.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-cell-of-dreams-live-version

and this, too! https://nyegenyegetapes.bandcamp.com/album/the-three-hands-of-doom (Scotch Rolex, Shackleton & Omutaba)

There’s a new colab coming out on AD 93 called Light Space Modulator

New Pinch & Shackleton when

that'd be nice

from April:
https://boomkat.com/products/the-rising-wave
https://ad93.bandcamp.com/album/the-rising-wave

Light-Space Modulator = Shackleton + Marlene Ribeiro

and another collab from Oct 2024 (single) : Giridhar Udupa featuring Shackleton
https://boomkat.com/products/chakra-the-wheel

another new record from a couple of weeks ago: https://waclawzimpel.bandcamp.com/album/3-the-shackleton-versions

Preview track is extremely Shackleton: https://samshackleton.bandcamp.com/album/euphoria-bound

yes yes

I missed the Saagara thing upthread but it's so phenomenal, as is the new track. I think he's going on a tear again, not that the last few years haven't been also good.

Also good:

https://hiverndiscs.bandcamp.com/album/drames-rurals-shackleton-mixes-2