
Marco Shuttle @ Floresta – Waking Life ’22

The fifth release on Space Drum Meditation comes with seven club-focused remixes of the previous record. Turning the once psycedelic SDM004 into a straighter, heavy percussion driven record with subliminal techno spirit. Featuring remixes by Mateo Hurtado, Talismann, Marco Shuttle, Anthony Linell, Konduku and Discknocked.
“As a direct response to Russia’s diabolic invasion of Ukraine, Northern Electronics assembles a sonic charity collection in order to raise funds for UNICEF, helping the children and families who’s suffering under the rage of their occupier.
All proceeds will go to UNICEF Ukraine.”
Marco Shuttle’s third album, Cobalt Desert Oasis, features a varied collection of music recorded across a two year period. Often traveling to remote destinations, Marco would come back to Berlin with field recordings, images, and other inspirations to process in his studio and turn into sound. The theme of the journey turns into a something more abstract than a travel diary, where environmental sounds blend in with modular synthesis, drum machines, effects and analog oscillators resulting in a cinematic listening experience where psychedelia, ritualism, and mysticism weave together in a sort of alien soundscape – that as the title of the album suggests, is reminiscent of a parallel utopian world. The album is rich in complex rhythmics, and more than in any of his previous work, has strong acoustic elements. Amongst other percussion instruments, Marco used the Tombak, a traditional Persian hand drum capable of reaching a very wide range of frequencies – from deep round subby toms, to high pitched sharp rimshots, throughout the record. Marco Shuttle is certainly not new to these sort of elements, but in Cobalt Desert Oasis he brings the environmental element of his sound into the forefront in a way that takes the listener into a hazy expanse where it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the machine elements from the natural – and where the music almost becomes a visual experience, which relates to Marco’s own photography used throughout the cover and insert images.
In light of the current Covid-19 Pandemic Studio Enisslab headed up by Italian DJ / Producer and Live Act Neel has announced the release of a very special 56 track charity compilation project, fundraising for The Red Cross, who are working extremely hard alongside health services internationally that are feeling the effects of the corona-virus outbreak the most right now. The compilation is available for a limited time via Bandcamp and 100% of the proceeds will be donated to The Red Cross to help the world’s most affected countries in the Covid-19 pandemic.
This special release features over 6 hours of previously unreleased and unheard material, where an all star cast of artists were encouraged to share music that reflects this time we are living in.
Neel, who is one half of live duo Voices From The Lake, and LF58 speaks out on behalf of the initiative, organised in collaboration with improvised live project Circle Of Live, and visual art collective Sbagliato. He explains:
“In this situation we all need to look after each other and this project is a start. I wanted to reach as many people as possible to spread this message, so I started to share the idea personally with lots of artists and the response was amazing. I wanted them to take their time with whichever tools they had available at home to produce some music that reflects this time we are living in, a contribution for this special project and to portray a special message.”
The project’s cover art image brought to you by visual art collective Sbagliato shows pictures of windows of houses and studios taken by the artists themselves: 56 musicians, 56 windows, 56 tracks shape a new place of sharing.
Marco Shuttle is very much part of the Spazio Disponibile label family: he’s put out his Systhema album and various EPs with Donato Dozzy and Neel in the last couple of years, and now the Eerie boss serves up more of his immersive techno excellence. He starts off in slow motion, with the roomy ambiance and slightly spooky dub of ‘Ritmo Elegante.’ Of course it’s a track carefully filled with little sonic details that make it a very real place to be. ‘Arpex’ then switches things up with a super urgent, super supple acidic techno rhythm thats overlaid with a widescreen arp that sapiens space and time, and ‘Stairway To The Milky Way’ is a half time stepper though some trippy sci-fi jungle before ‘Qatarsi’ rides on a floating groove as sound effects pan all around you and traps you in a state of trance. These are expressive, hard to define and excellent electronics once again from Marco Shuttle.
Spazio Disponibile label is close friend and Italian producer Marco Shuttle. The Eerie label-boss is a regular on the label having put out his Systhema album here last year, as well as his Flauto Synthetico EP in 2016. His always meticulously crafted sound is rooted in dark, cavernous techno. He finds plenty of new ground in each new release, though, with some tracks being haunting ambient works and others more propulsive rhythms. This new EP features just that across four typically inventive and absorbing tracks that are as much for your head as they are for your heel.
‘Flowers From The Ashes’ is the latest multi-artist project to bear the acclaimed Stroboscopic Artefacts imprimatur. There is a sensibility of decadence and corroded grandeur etched within its four album sides, reminding us that historically ‘decadent’ times have nonetheless resulted in some of the boldest acts of individual and collective creativity. Like the ‘floral’ theme that has remained a consistent feature of S.A.’s graphic presentation, the music here equally presents fragility and intensity in a way that really drives home this visual metaphor for good, while still holding out the promise that similar creations will be seeded in the near future. Though many of the artists involved have set of residence outside of their native Italy, all contribute here to make a captivating portrait of a shared spirit and cultural memory. Tracks from Silvia Kastel, Andrea Belfi, Marco Shuttle, Ninos Du Brasil, Alessandro Adriani, Chevel, Lucy, Lory D, Caterina Barbieri and Neel.
The 12th chapter on Eerie Records is a 2 tracker by label owner Marco Shuttle himself. With the return to a more groovy and floor-friendly take than the abstract sound of his recently released LP the release maintains nonetheless the classic signiture deep landscapy approach the artist has made us used to with his production. Tribal rhythmics, 808 grooves, underlayed pads and some slightly middle eastern reminiscent sonic elements make it for a record that although still on the leffield side, is 100% techno. Anyone who loved Sing Like a bird will probably find this one very appealing.
For its ninth release, Italian label Spazio Disponible looks to countryman Marco Shuttle for a first full length. ‘Systhema’ comes three years after his last album on his own Eerie label and finds him again focussing on an absorbing ambient techno style across eight enthralling cuts. Shuttle layers sound in subtle ways and has a meticulous attention to detail that results in a cinematic techno style that is cavernous and hypnotizing. Always operating in a region where ambient, techno and heady soundtracks become one, with this album Marco Shuttle once again confirms he is one of the finest sonic sculptors out there.
Dozzy and Neel’s label Spazio Disponibile serves up a third release, with the latest one coming from Italian Marco Shuttle. The techno stylist and Eerie boss serves up three tracks that continue to mark out his heady and hypnotic aesthetic.
Marco Shuttle returns to his Eerie label for his first full release since 2014’s debut album, ‘Visione’, with a new two track single that sees Shuttle return to more dancefloor driven territory. ‘Sing Like a Bird (Reprise)’ is a fresh version of the track originally released last year on Peter Van Hoesen’s Time To Express label, to which Shuttle fans will have become familiar with in recent sets. It maintains the original’s hazy reverbed flavour, but in the form of a more groove-oriented and psychedelic edit that sidelines much of the original’s vocal track in favour of a snake enchanter-like synewave melody, for a less lyrical but equally musical new take. The B-side ‘Back Here’ is an older track that Shuttle has been holding back for a while, waiting for the right moment to reveal this atmospheric, melancholic and melodic track, in which intricately delayed layers of piano keys progressively unfold through a rich percussive background made of 808 rims, deep bass kicks, heavy toms and jazzy hats and rides.