In 2014, Sam Shepherd wrote a career-defining tune in a matter of minutes. “Nuits Sonores” was completed on a flight to the Lyon competition of the identical title, and it sounds as easy because it apparently was, climbing in the direction of the heavens with out boiling over into extra. That is one among Shepherd’s two predominant modes—when he’s not a jazz auteur, he’s a crack home and techno producer. (He additionally has a PhD in neuroscience and is a revered and adventurous selector behind the decks.) That different facet has gained him fame from all corners of the music trade, culminating in Guarantees, his 2021 collaboration with Pharoah Sanders. Extra just lately, he’s been taking to enormous competition phases with crossover DJs like Caribou and 4 Tet, following them of their quests to infiltrate the mainstream on their very own phrases. All these elements of Floating Factors are related, however not all the time clearly. Enter Cascade, an album that bolsters Shepherd’s membership crafty along with his musical chops in service of 1 single-minded mission: blissing out on the dance flooring.
The rollout for Cascade began again in 2022 with “Vocoder,” an industrial-strength anthem to file alongside “Nuits Sonores” and 2019’s “LesAlpx.” “Vocoder (Membership Combine)” opens the album in a boisterous rush, careening towards a breakdown of clipped vocal samples that spill out like a cargo of french fries from a turned-over semi. It’s almost reckless by Floating Factors requirements, capturing that feeling when the strobes hit laborious and you’ll’t inform if the lights are attending to you otherwise you’re simply extra pale than you thought.
The raucous album is a direct sequel to 2019’s aggressive Crush. On that file, Shepherd showcased his newfound mastery of modular synthesis, creating cresting waves of fuzz and distortion that bore down on fitful rhythms and unpredictable track constructions—the outcome, he stated, of opening enormous venues for the xx and desirous to problem the viewers with “chaotic” music. This time he’s targeted on making individuals transfer as a substitute of befuddling them. Cascade is what occurred when Shepherd wasn’t capable of tour in any respect, an exorcism of dancefloor impulses impeded by the pandemic after which nurtured by the return of DJ gigs. Within the midst of recording it, he decamped to the Southern California desert to put in writing the rating for a ballet, which makes Cascade a vacation and a reckoning multi functional.
These tracks redirect the jazzy vamp of basic data like Shadows into zig-zagging journeys, like these ’90s screen-saver mazes. The strategy peaks with centerpiece “Quick Ahead,” the place jittery synth leads wrap round one another like a hissing Medusa head of countermelodies and surging textures. The melodies decay and detune in actual time, highlighting Shepherd’s handiwork—digital music you’ll be able to virtually hear respiratory, rising, and dying. “Afflecks Palace” takes this concept and throws a swirl of conflicting feelings at it. A nostalgic journey by means of early IDM, acid home, and jungle, it’s wiry and unpredictable, held along with a skinny thread because of Shepherd’s now appreciable expertise making this type of stuff on the fly.
