For all of Two Shell’s madcap antics — making an article self-destruct after 24 hours, allegedly deploying decoys for live sets — what really counts is the music. I’ve listened to it in a variety of settings: headphones in my bed, out of car speakers on multiple road trips, muffled under conversation at a party, at a live show. What always strikes me is how soothingly steady the music is despite its frenetic pulse. There’s so much happening in bangers like “home” — fried vocals fluttering like metallic fairy chirrups, frisson-inducing percussion rolls, splatters of trebly sonic paint — but the layers are mixed with such ordered, tidy control they merge into one twitching organism. Even more organized and restrained but equally kinetic, “Memory” marshals bass booms and raining synth droplets into a small spartan army of clubby electricity. Try to resist nodding your head gently or moving your foot when it plays, you can’t.
#20 - Two Shell - "home" and "Memory" (tie)
#20 - Two Shell - "home" and "Memory" (tie)
#20 - Two Shell - "home" and "Memory" (tie)
For all of Two Shell’s madcap antics — making an article self-destruct after 24 hours, allegedly deploying decoys for live sets — what really counts is the music. I’ve listened to it in a variety of settings: headphones in my bed, out of car speakers on multiple road trips, muffled under conversation at a party, at a live show. What always strikes me is how soothingly steady the music is despite its frenetic pulse. There’s so much happening in bangers like “home” — fried vocals fluttering like metallic fairy chirrups, frisson-inducing percussion rolls, splatters of trebly sonic paint — but the layers are mixed with such ordered, tidy control they merge into one twitching organism. Even more organized and restrained but equally kinetic, “Memory” marshals bass booms and raining synth droplets into a small spartan army of clubby electricity. Try to resist nodding your head gently or moving your foot when it plays, you can’t.