- Arid landscapes that swallow up rhythms.
- Bandshell is best known for austere, forbidding club tracks—but club tracks nonetheless. His latest self-released EP, like all his music, echoes UK rave culture, but its arid landscapes tend to swallow up the rhythms slogging through them. There is one dance floor track, "Gully Ripper," the EP's creaking hinge. Its booming kick drums start syncopated and wary before congealing into a four-on-the-floor trudge circa 100 BPM. Eventually, scraps of dialtone synth deliver something almost like a hook.
This mournful moment is the closest thing the EP has to a resolution. Elsewhere it's all lingering questions. "Flying Wingback" is an icy synth prelude thick with dread. "Bedlam, '92" hints at a spooky rave reboot before subsiding teasingly after 80 seconds. And "Tropic Flame" is two minutes of scuzzy downpitched loop, of the sort heard on Actress's Ghettoville. "Jungle Image" is the most striking of the lot. It sounds like one of Shed's gauzy breakbeat tracks with a dose of David Lynch: the euphoria turned dark, the drums drunk and stumbling. Gated synths flicker and hiss like flames, and snatches of phone chatter pass through the gloom: "Hello..?" Nervous laughter. "Next question."
Tracklist01. Flying Wingback
02. Gully Ripper
03. Bedlam, '92
04. Jungle Image
05. Tropic Flame
06. Jungle Image (Rough Mix, Edit)