Shackleton

Lancashire native Sam Shackleton first surfaced in 2004 when Mordant Music issued his “Stalker,” after which he steadily refined a brittle yet intricately layered approach to sample-driven electronics that resisted easy classification as either straight techno or dubstep, the two tags most often applied to his work. Between 2005 and 2008 he co-operated the Skull Disco imprint alongside Appleblim, overseeing ten vinyl releases that included his own “Blood on My Hands”; a sprawling two-part, twenty-minute Ricardo Villalobos remix of that track brought him wider attention among followers of underground dance music. Two years later he delivered his most expansive project up to that point, the triple-vinyl set Three EPs, which Perlon also released on CD.

Shortly after inaugurating Woe to the Septic Heart! in late 2010, he compiled the 55th edition of the Fabric mix series, constructing it entirely from fresh material. The following year Honest Jon’s became his new home, issuing the 12"s Deadman and Fireworks before pairing him with dubstep pioneer Pinch for a joint album on the same label. In 2012 three Drawbar Organ EPs appeared on Woe to the Septic Heart!, collected alongside additional pieces into the full-length Music for the Quiet Hour. Freezing Opening Thawing and the Deliverance Series trilogy of EPs both surfaced in 2014. A 12" collecting his reworkings of Japanese noise-rock outfit Nisennenmondai arrived the next year. Returning to Honest Jon’s in 2016, he issued Devotional Songs, a collaboration with Italian actor and vocalist Ernesto Tomasini, then followed it in early 2017 with Sferic Ghost Transmits, recorded with Vengeance Tenfold.