Shackleton
Euphoria Bound
AD 93
In the wake of a flurry of Shackleton activity during the past few years, it would seem the Berlin-based low-end singularity is in something of a purple patch. A lot of his recent releases have been collaborative, as he’s remixed Wacław Zimpel’s Indian jazz-fusion project Saagara, collided with Valentina Magaletti and Al Wootton’s dubby post-punk masterclass Holy Tongue, entwined with the post-rock overtones of Six Organs of Admittance and sparred with Japanese wild card Shigeru Ishihara (a.k.a. DJ Scotch Rolex). At every turn, his beguiling sense of rhythm and mystical shroud of microtonal atmospherics reliably lead into uncharted territory, familiar as somewhere that only Shackleton could have gone.
His last solo album, 2023’s The Scandal Of Time, was a career highlight, a tapestry of nebulous constructions with a distinctly organic, slowly unfurling quality. By contrast, Euphoria Bound feels urgent and impactful, anchored to the kind of propulsive grooves that have felt lower on his priority list in recent years. Don’t be misled, this is still a Shackleton record and operates on a different spectrum to other music—it’s a dense, labyrinthine work that throws up evocative scenes and elegant energy shifts throughout. But there is a definite locked-in quality to the structure of the tracks that feels distinct, and works as a powerful foil to the spiraling shimmers of folk instrumentation and poised subs.
From the tough snare punching through “Crushing Realities” to the skippy funk of “The Unbeliever’s Pulse,” there are discernible beats that remain long enough to grab hold of, and it makes for incredibly potent dance music, cast in a rarefied form that Shackleton embodies in his scene of one.
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