Vinyl LP
Before his fourth full-length, tragedy struck Shapednoise–he lost his hearing. This is devastating for anyone; for a music producer it’s catastrophic. Thankfully, he regained it, but this experience stuck with him on Absurd Matter. The sheer sonic power that is imbued on every track demonstrates how the Italian consolidated his trauma: by lacing his music with unpredictable freneticism. The end result is consistently thrilling.
Compared with his previous album Aesthesis, Absurd Matter is more beat-oriented, focused around drums and kicks rather than the noisescapes that so dominated the 2019 release. On that record, his collaborations span experimental powerhouses like Drew McDowall, Rabit, and MHYSA. Absurd Matter leans much heavier on rappers, who, while experimental in their own right, ground the constant textures and sensory overload with assured, poised verses.
Consider the Armand Hammer–featuring “Family”; billy woods and Elucid show themselves comfortable on any type of beat, and Shapednoise’s grinding industrial gears work well with their despondent raps. “I’m not supposed to be here” is repeated over and over amidst the chaos, woods and Elucid getting at a specific kind of darkness ingested within the belly of the beast.
Shifting moods, “Know Yourself” has ZelooperZ’s erratic flow and energy put on trial as Shapednoise crafts a stuttering beat for him to spit over. Subwoofers beware, the bass on this track may cause extensive vehicle damage. To shape Absurd Matter, Shapednoise makes a shrewd decision by focusing on beat-oriented tracks. Rather than the formless, improvised nature of his past work, there’s an effort to create a structure, only to sabotage altogether by the end of the song.
In-between illustrious features there is a sense of foreboding dread permeating the core of Absurd Matter. The press release notes he’s rebuilding deconstructed club in his own image, but whatever club that plays this would probably clear out the floor in minutes. Not that he would mind. Shapednoise is singularly determined to create worlds out of his sounds that are jagged, foreign, and uncanny.
The album’s centerpiece is helmed by Moor Mother on “Poetry.” Her expertise at conveying rage shines through with Shapednoise’s wall of noise, a thrilling cacophony buoyed by one of the best musicians working today. When she flatly states “You can’t cancel me,” it reads not as a condemnation of “cancel culture” but as a defiant statement against a world so intent on beating her down. It’s a compliment to Shapednoise and Absurd Matter that he can hang with such a cyclonic force.
