- Shed gets funky.
- When listening to Shed, my mind starts to think in Hard Wax soundbites (or maybe the Hard Wax Twitter bot): "Shed achieving peak Shedism. TIP!" Part of this is because René Pawlowitz's music exists in its own self-referential world. It's not that his music is insular—clock last year's dubsteppy 12-inch or the Midwest acid of his last EQD release—but no matter what alias he's working under, as soon as you hear the first kick, you know it's Shed. The same is true on his second venture under the Evil Fred alias. We get, as the Hard Wax bot in my mind says, "Perfectly executed UK funky hybrids. Highly recommended."
The last time Pawlowitz trotted out the Evil Fred alias was in 2013, when he went in for some deep house burners. (Think Head High, but with a bit more swing and an energy closer to a '90s New York club.) On The Unknown Evil, Shed jumps back across the Atlantic. Our first taste of this UK-centric vibe comes 90 seconds into "You (Original Mix)," as an offbeat snare and synth chord enter the mix with a UK funky flavouring. It's still a house track, but it's a new direction for Pawlowitz. "The Evil Dance" does the opposite, taking UK funky and giving it some house flourishes, punctuated with euphoric rave piano melodies. The other two tracks on the record cut a straighter Shed sound, with ravey chords, broken drum rolls and, on "The Evil Trance," a sugarcoating of melodic trance.
In a review of a WK7 record from 2017, Angus Finlayson noted that "the real magic [happens] on his EPs." Between Pawlowitz's ever-expanding roster of aliases and his casual, unpredictable release schedule, it can be hard to track where and when Pawlowitz is releasing music, much less how he's experimenting with the sounds. But Finlayson's sentiment rings true four years later. The EP format remains Pawlowitz's laboratory—we get to see him do his thinking in real time. This release highlights how there's even more elasticity in the unmistakable aesthetic he has spent two decades perfecting.
Tracklist01. You
02. You (Work It)
03. The Evil Dance
04. The Evil Trance