Shift - Abandon

Shift – Abandon – Unrest Productions - UNPRLP13 – 2017 – LP.

CD – Cold Spring - CSR236CD

Unrest Productions - Unsound Recordings - Cold Spring - Unrest Bandcamp

a

to rid them all and to wash their filth from my body

nothing – no one

recaptured

b

armed, disturbed, hostile

Shift is a UK based Industrial noise project originally from Sweden that has been releasing material since 2004. There have been seven albums so far (2 are splits) and many more releases. The project is also the nucleus of the Unrest Productions label. There was a cassette on Unrest also called Abandon in 2007, however I am unsure of the connection to this release.

Abandon shifts slowly and deeply with ‘to rid them all and to wash their filth from my body’. It churns and resonates a Death Hum like a deep alarm constantly revving itself throughout the track. Scraping vocal noise hiss and beats pulsate at long intervals. High pitched noise joins in the rising intensity as the breathing noises and vocal growls increase. The Death Industrial drones are the stable core of the track as everything else evolves and changes around it.

Nothing – No One is a bad nightmare of a track, a Night Terror of ambient menace. It’s difficult to tell whether it is on a scratched loop, on repeat or just cleverly repetitive, either way I was forced to engage with the vinyl in case it had got locked in a groove or scratch. I was jolted in and out of the record; the final track on side one ‘recaptured’ does fall into a locked grove, adding further record needle paranoia with the record’s constant, sonic menace: you can’t fall into the album’s abstract qualities, you’re constantly being manipulated and moved around.

Further humming intensifies the single track that forms side 2 of Abandon, beats pulsate again with more frequency. The Humming of ‘armed, disturbed, hostile’ shifts in its’ resonating drones. The vocal is simultaneously a shout and a whisper as it blows over things like a bad, hateful wind.

This album did give me nightmares, I could hear it in my sleep. It is effective in its serious delivery and has a distinct ‘Unrest’ feel as a result, it is playful in combination with it’s menace via the pretend and real groove locks on Side A. This is a well-presented, dark, threatening menace of an album that really ups the ante where lower level deep PE/Industrial is concerned.

Choppy Noodles 2018.