Shift (Chris Hoy) is out with his debut album on the South African based label Timecode Records.
Shift "Red Line" Timecode Records 2003 (TCCD 006)
1. No More Humans
2. White Widow Rmx
3. Xtrasensory
4. Centrifuge
5. Don’t U Know?
6. Reflex
7. Digital D.N.A.
8. Animated Logic
9. Infra-Red
Something tells me that this is a dark album already when I see the cover art… And yes, it’s definitely dark! The first track is one of the noisiest tracks I have heard this year. Pure dark, screaming, noisy sounds all the way above some pumping rhythms. Very industrial. Track 2 continues in the same style. Shift sure like those noisy sounds… Not much melodies, just screaming sounds above a rolling bass line. Track 3 is also of the noisy type. The sounds become almost irritating in my ears. It would have helped with some more melody or lighter sounds. Track 4 starts dark and scary from the first second, but in a cool way. My favourite track on this album. It has some kind of floating, very scary sound. After a while it become totally full on.
Then we get a track he has made together with Broken Toy (James Copeland). This one has some really weird sounds, but away from that, it isn’t very different from the rest of these noisy tracks. Track 6 is another scary track, with very stumpy rhythms. Those sounds we get in these tracks sounds very metallic. Track 7 goes the noisy way again. Pure night time trance all the way through. Track 8 reminds me a bit of some industrial hard house. Way too noisy for my ears. I had hoped for a bit more relaxed finish, but no. The last track is also of the full on noisy kind. But this one has some really cool sounds.
This album by Shift is for those of you who likes very full on night time trance, full of noisy sounds. Personally I missed some more variety and melodies, and all those noisy sounds went a little bit over the top.
PK (shivapks@hotmail.com)
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