River Shook - River Shook - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Algiers have always been unflinching, but SHOOK is at the same time notably joyous and celebratory. It was born when Fisher and Mahan found themselves back in their native Atlanta for several months, reeling from growing pressures and burnout as touring musicians. This triggered an intense period of beatmaking, reconnecting as friends over hours immersed in episodes of Rhythm Roulette and Against the Clock and descending deep into alt-rap YouTube rabbit holes. A revisit of DJ Grand Wizard Theodore's 1970s punk-infused New York City rap masterpiece 'Subway Theme' served as a spiritual moodboard for the album's cross-pollination of urban and counter-culture styles. Across the seamlessly flowing set, including spoken vignettes and ambient instrumental segues, the band pay respect to a sprawling lineage of rap and punk iconoclasts from DJ Premier, DJ Screw and Dead Boys to Lukah, Griselda and Dïat - chopping and screwing beats on a dusty SP-404 and a Sequential Circuits Tempest, building imagined sample libraries from scratch.

In this case, the promo mumbo jumbo checks out - StereogumSomewhere close to Manchester's ever changing city centre, as the sun fades and peeks through the newest glass facade, you'll find Shaking Hand. One part in shadow, the other basking in prisms of light as they sketch out their own sonic landscapes in the dusty redbrick mill they call home. One that is just about clinging on from the encroaching developments that surround them. Their debut album pulls from early post-rock, and 90s US alternative rock, creating their own brand of Northwest-emo.The band's musical DNA runs through experimental guitar outfits like Women, Slint, Sonic Youth, Pavement, and Ulrika Spacek, balanced with the melodic sensibility of Big Thief and the dynamic intimacy of Yo La Tengo. Their compositions push against structure sudden jolts of tempo, polyrhythms that almost fall apart, and riffs that unravel into something fragile or ecstatic.

The Neon Machine, the fourth album from Austin musician Abram Shook, is a dystopian dance party, and everyone's invited. Juxtaposed against 2017's sepia-tinged, quietly reflective Love at Low Speed, the new record's mix of irresistible beats and slyly humor- ous lyrics might seem like a 180 at first glance a giddy, knowing soundtrack to the end of the world. Those familiar with Shook's previous work, however, understand that he has always explored his own brand of off-kilter funk, from the soulful swagger of his debut album's standout single InchCoastal' through Low Speed's Prince-inspired InchLies'. The varied influences of world music and jazz that are present in all his records can still be heard (as in the High-Life inspired guitar work on InchMy Money'), though here Shook tucks them into the corners and uses them in more subtle ways, giving center stage to a vintage Sequen- tial Circuits Prophet 600, a drum sequencer, and his signature rubbery bass lines. In Shook's adept hands, The Neon Machine is full of day-glo danceability even though something slightly sinister lurks beneath the surface; it's a kind of tour de force synesthe- sia for the fevered mind. With this record, Shook has traded in his usual gimlet-eyed observations for a playfully cynical sense of humor InchI play the game where I drink you off my mind/It never works, but I love to try/And I can go all night,' he sings on InchCocaine Blonde'. Using highly confessional lyrics and deeply personal insight to convey his anger, with the current political climate, he writes candidly about his anxieties, and frustrations toward a country and culture that he's grown up with, but hasn't always felt at home in. Every line seems to have a double meaning, and once you start to unlock the code - that every reference to a drug or a lover is actually a metaphor for the United States - they become even darker and