- Shonky's rep grows bigga with every release – his second EP for Dan Ghenacia's label picks up where his (fantastic) previous effort on Sub Static left off. The three tracks on offer draw from the same sonic palette – both a good thing and a bad thing.
'Olympia' is dominated by a looped brooding bassline and a reprise of those spaced-out, Sleeparchive-aping bleepy synths that worked so well on 'Solar'. Occasional buzzsaw FX builds and kooky plips and plops keep things motoring, but the flatter kick/snare combo and vacant drops renders it slightly less cohesive.
'Phantomas' delves deeper - a trippy, twinkling synth (again) sucks you in and gradually unfurls in a mind-bending phase, complemeted (again) by dry, flat percussion and a simple-but-ominous bassline. Random rubbery FX and squeaks are dotted through the track, while menacing synths drift in and out, tempered (again) by FX-filled pauses. It's the most 'heads-down' track here, and the most effective.
'Horizontal Moon' is lighter. The main elements - beats, bassline and synth – are more sprightly, while the rat-a-tat percussion patches and vocal snippets are new, but after fifteen minutes, it's all a bit samey. Shonky is a man in form, we're all for developing a signature sound and these will fit nicely into your box – but things have to remain fresh. OK, this is great, start over.
TracklistA1 Olympia
B1 Phantomas
B2 Horizontal Moon