It’s a query solely a choose few artists ever have non-delusional causes to wrestle with. Sam Shepherd (aka the producer, multi-instrumentalist and composer buying and selling as Floating Factors) has had legitimate grounds for pondering this dilemma lately.
Guarantees, Shepherd’s deservedly lauded 2021 collaboration with the late grasp of religious jazz, saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, amplified the ethos of blissful ambient drifts, jazz-influenced explorations and cyclical meditativeness of 2015’s debut LP Elaenia to create a minimalist masterpiece of critically stunning, hushed contemplation, painted on the widest attainable canvas with assist from the London Symphony Orchestra.
Subsequent to this contemplative landmark fusion of cerebral electronica and religious jazz, the sweaty dancefloor thud of Cascade’s earlier phases particularly can appear disappointingly one-dimensional, even monotonous of their seemingly single-minded quest of sweaty launch. Nevertheless, extra cautious explorations of Cascade’s much less immediately apparent depths means that Shepherd might effectively have discovered a technique for seamlessly mixing the widescreen, unhurried explorations and delicate variations on a theme that characterised Guarantees along with his foundational roots and ongoing curiosity within the easy joys of surrendering to hypnotic repetition that drives the pummelling physicality of dancefloor-friendly digital music, most lately sampled on 2019’s Crush.
Maybe the stripped-back, one-guy-and-a-laptop recipe for Cascade’s
building is a respite or counterpoint for the longer-term
self-discipline and meticulous planning that was undoubtedly known as for when
working with giant orchestras on each Guarantees and Mere Mortals, Shepherd’s ballet rating for the San Francisco Ballet. Fundamental sparse set-up doesn’t translate into easy music on Cascade, nevertheless.
True, there are reveals of minimalist momentum-building,
with one central hook repeated till it acquires near-hypnotic qualities
(see “Birth4000”, a mere dash 4 and a half minutes on an album
populated largely by six, seven and even eight-minute mini-epics). There
can also be important quantities of fascinating element and delicate shifts in
temper and tone beneath the pure physicality of the beats that hog the
highlight on Cascade. “Key103” (named after an underground
radio station that fed Shepherd’s curiosity in digital music throughout
his time of learning composition in Manchester) ultimately morphs right into a
haunting slow-burn coda that sounds much more alluring after the height
vitality bounce that varieties the majority of the observe. “Ocotillo” begins with
the ripple of harp earlier than regularly blooming into one other cavalcade of
ricocheting beats.
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