A little over a month ago, we decided to take a short hiatus from our weekly mix series. The series is the crown jewel of our operation and as we get busier, it gets more and more difficult to maintain. In this case, it became something of a burden and the fun of placing mixes from our favorites artists every week almost felt like a hassle. Luckily, we’ve got the verve back now and will actually be expanding the series by including interviews with as many of the mixes as we can. Hope you enjoy.

The marriage of the pristine and the rugged can be throughout the history of electronic music, everything from acid house to hardcore to bassline smashing together beatific vocal samples with clattering breakbeats, roaring sublo frequencies with exquisite keyboard work. Some of our favorite music takes that ethos to another level, blurring the lines  between traditionally beautiful sounds and unadulterated noise, forcing the listener to face the scraping, banging, dragging characteristics of computer music. Arca, Fis and Rabit achieve this with particular aplomb and it appears that a whole wave of producers are willing to not only include, but embrace, industrial characteristics, whether derived from the hardware and/or software they use, the urban environment they reside in, or the literature or film they imbibe.

Across two EPs, for Slime Recordings and Clubwerks respectively, York-residing artist SHALT has built up a strong case to be mentioned in the aforementioned conversation and his forthcoming work should only cement that place. Built around crackling, disintegrating percussion and widescreen melodic work, abetted by disembodied vocal samples, SHALT’s work has a distinctly tactile feel, building out from techno, the darker side of garage and other UK club forms into an aesthetic distinctly his own. SHALT refers to science fiction as a means to investigate themes of life extension and extraterrestrial exploration and it’s not difficult to imagine tracks like “Callisto” or his edit of Tim Hecker’s “Stab Variation” soundtracking those advancements. That being said, SHALT’s work isn’t just some bland futurist statement or appraisal, its function as much body music as it is a science fiction statement. His Astral Plane Mix acts as a prologue for future work and considering the all-encompassing nature of the originals within, alongside work from Fis, Pinch & Mumdance, Cristobal Tapia de Veer and more, SHALT’s next step will be a further example of how to match the dissonant and sonorous forms.

Hit the jump to read our interview with SHALT and to check out the full track list…

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