Strands - Strands

Stephen Shannon has been a busy man in recent years. When not touring and releasing records as part of the critically-acclaimed Halfset, the Dubliner can be found donning his producer’s hat at his suburban Experimental Audio studio for albums by Cap Pas Cap, Groom, The Dinah Brand and many others. He’s found time to craft the odd track under his own name in that time, but debut LP Strands sees him properly striking out on his own for the first time. The result is a record that’s worthy of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with any other on which Shannon has either worked or played – indeed, it could well be the best of the lot.
 
Strands is tailor-made for late-night listening, brimming with the obsessive attention-to-detail you’d expect from someone who knows his way around a mixing desk. It may be mellow and low-key, but neat instrumental flourishes and absorbing dynamics grab you and slowly reel you in. Crucially, it never feels one-paced, and manages to avoid the classic pitfall of fading into inoffensively pretty background music. And though it may be anchored by an electronic base, at its heart it sounds utterly organic, glowing with pastoral ambience.
 
There’s many a highlight: ‘Chow Bell’ features a looping, lulling vocal hook that’s gradually decorated with layer upon layer of meticulously-judged instrumentation; the effect is trance-like, and it’s a recurring feature throughout these eleven tracks. ‘The Alamo’ throbs gently, chiming hooks intertwining with strings and piano. The aptly-named ‘Tremor’ is a masterclass in minimalism, it’s shimmering, quivering pulse like taking an aural bath. The subtly hypnotic guitar figures and rhythms of ‘Framed’, meanwhile, are reminiscent of the mellower side of fellow Dubs The Redneck Manifesto.

If one track stands out above all others, then it’s the stunning ‘Littoral’, which calls to mind the likes of múm or amiina, sounding at once intricately layered, evocative and playful. The more you listen to this debut, the more its title starts to make perfect sense: there are so many threads here waiting to unravel that with every listen you notice a little touch or well-placed effect that had previously passed you by. It all adds up to a masterful first solo release from an unassuming sonic wizard: the centre stage suits him, it seems.

 
(Click here to read last week's interview with Strands' Stephen Shannon in which he took us through his Life In Records)