Shanti Celeste & Funkineven – SSS
When assessing the output of any producer, it’s important to look for signs of artistic development. It’s two years since Shanti Celeste delivered her double A-side debut single for the BRSTL label she co-founded, and in that time her sound and style has evolved at a furious rate. While that Need Your Lovin (Baby) 12”, and the Idle Hands-released follow-up, Days Like This, both successfully explored dreamy deep house pastures, it’s been much harder to pigeonhole her sound since. Certainly, Celeste’s sound palette has expanded, with more obvious use of spacey, presumably analogue synthesizers and drum machines. Stylistically, the Bristol-based producer has moved more obviously towards electro-influenced pastures, limiting the 4/4 deep house excursions to a single EP for Secretsundaze.
In hindsight, this seems like an anomaly, as if it was produced and signed before her high profile – and rather fine – release for pal Julio Bashmore’s Broadwalk imprint, Universal Glow, last year. That, and her subsequent contributions to Washington D.C’s Future Times label, have offered progressively dustier, analogue-sounding takes on a luscious, synth-heavy electro sound that effortlessly flits between loved-up dreaminess and humid, tropical-inspired stickiness. Even her June-released return to BRSTOL, Moods, captured this melodious, saucer-eyed feel, even if its’ snappy analogue rhythms were more in keeping with her straight-up, four-to-the-floor past.
SSS, her latest single, continues this evolution. While curiously credited to both Shanti Celeste and Apron boss Funkineven, the latter’s contribution seems to be limited to providing a flipside remix. While this remix is fine, containing plenty of Stevie J’s trademark toasty boogie synths, for me it doesn’t quite have the jaw-dropping, mood-altering feel of Shanti Celeste’s original. What’s so remarkable about “SSS (Original Cut)” is that it takes the adoptive Bristol’s electro explorations to the next level. So while there are some dreamy, huggable pads and whistling, deep space melodies – all reminiscent of early ‘90s ambient and intelligent techno – what really shines through is the toughness of the beatbox electro rhythms and the mind-melting fluidity of her tumbling, acid-flecked synth bassline. It’s these that drive the track forward, yet look deeper and you’ll find even more going on below the surface.
“SSS (Original Cut)” somehow manages to meld together the surging 808 intensity of Drexciya, the hippy-ish textures of fragrant new age deep house, the out-there funk of Maurice Fulton’s Syclops project, and the colourful melodies of early synth-disco. It all adds up to concrete proof of Shanti Celeste’s ongoing development as a producer; on this evidence, we should expect even better things from her in 2016.
Matt Anniss
Tracklisting:
A. SSS (OG Cut)
B. SSS (’90s Cut)