Shackleton announces first album in nine years

15 rare copies of LP will be signed by the enigmatic producer

Bass music innovator and DJ Sam Shackleton – better known simply as Shackleton – has announced his first album in nine years, Departing Like Rivers, via his own imprint Woe To The Septic Heart on 21 September. It is his third solo LP, and follows his last release alongside Motokawa and Meinhart in 2020 under the moniker Tunes Of Negation.

Shackleton is a respected figure in early dubstep, having put out many EPs and LPs via the label Skull Disco, which he managed in the period from 2005 to 2008. Collaborating with other artists including Appleblim, Mordant Music and Gatekeeper, his earlier music is known for fusing dubstep with elements of dub and post-punk. 

The new album, by contrast to Shackleton’s prior work, features no collaborators, and is intended as an exploration of the artist’s core sound, “without any of the genre tropes that may have been present the last time.”

Speaking on the project, Shackleton said: “I had hoped that the album could work on multiple levels. In that respect, it is intended as a psychedelic album as much as anything. You can listen to it in a more meditative way without getting distracted by the details. I suppose that is why the frequency spectrum is more similar to my earlier work, but there is a lot going on under the surface and it can be quite demanding if you are paying attention as there are odd time signatures and dissonant elements in there too.”

“It is quite foggy and scuzzy in feel and I am using a lot of filtering and reverb to get this. I think the vocal samples are an attempt to offset this, to bring a bit of light to the murkiness. I also wanted the vocal aspects to reflect influences or things I could closely identify with for the most part, so there are a few hints at British folk songs in amongst the music, albeit rather ghostly and not directly recognisable. But anyway, all this is much more a question of feel, rather than a signifier in this respect. I like the haunting, melancholic aspects of these songs I suppose.”

Departing Like Rivers will be released digitally on September 21, 2021. Additionally, it will be released on limited edition white label vinyl, restricted to just 15 copies, all of which are signed by the artist.