shapeshifter_blues
Hinsidan translates from Swedish as 'The Here After' and with 'Shapeshifter Blues' the Danish duo of Atish Pare and Superjus have incorporated the exaggerated minutia of the title of their earlier 'God is in the Details' into the majestic drone of simultaneous presence and absence reflected in the group's namesake. Embodied too, is the usefulness of a name constantly translated, as it sets the listener up for the intertwined cycles of shuffling space and metallic flutter that permeate the compositions. While 'God is the Details' called attention to small brash cracks and slips that skated the surface of mesmerizing atmospherics, on 'Shapeshifter Blues' those scratches have been bound and compressed into a heady, churning static that sounds of questions. The cover art announces as much, spackled circles overlap and colors move from very light to very dark, aiding and transcending each other. Voices, however, occasionally drift up to answer the resounding tones. On 'outnumbered by sound' the fragmented, mutilated echoes of children mutate the rhythmic cascade of stomping volume. Sound might outnumber the voices of those who taunted during recess, now, but the power of an angry army of kids sustains; that the piece alternates between sound and numbers reveals a syncretic relationship between objects working together and undermining each other. The following track, 'a second in the mind, a day in the life', provides a response to the children as the pitches drift seamlessly up higher and higher, climbing into the vibrant, rising female voice that they might one day become - or that might just be gliding sound untied to identifiable sources. Hinsidan unfurl this mysterious logic throughout 'Shapeshifter Blues', moving from pitch to idea to pitch in conjunction with a steady backing arch that never breaks drone.
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