Holy Tongue meets Shackleton - The Tumbling Psychic Joy of Now (AD93) + Disenshittification

Dub fusion and digital hope

Wow, what a difference a Substack Notes post can make. It seems that my comments on the further enshittification of Spotify certainly hit a nerve. For the 300+ new subscribers that joined in the last 3 days, a warm welcome, and a big thanks to all those that liked and restacked the post. This has been my most viral social media post by quite some distance.

Although it focussed on Spotify I'm guessing it blew up because sadly they're not alone - Amazon, Google, Meta, Tik Tok, subscription based everything, inbuilt obsolescence, the gig economy, the list goes on. Luckily, despite the internet being slowly strangled by a few too big to jail or care monopolies, it’s still a borderless, free space where ideas and idealism have space to grow and flourish, albeit in the shadows of the giants.

Bandcamp, newsletter platforms, Duck Duck Go, Signal, Discord servers, Firefox, Soundcloud’s genuinely artist-centric model, Protonmail, Mastodon and Bluesky, have all sprung up to give us options away from the algorithms and surveillance capitalism. It’s time for some digital detoxification and disenshittification, and luckily we still have a choice.

I know reading the news just once in the morning like you used to and ignoring the comments section, disconnecting from your friends and favourite show offs on social media and changing email addresses is a hassle and seems as daunting as changing your bank account or moving house, but after a bit of initial unease life goes on, and if it does without you willingly feeding the machine and in a more ethical, private way then the sense of wellbeing will soon outweigh the sense of loss or missing out.

Now let’s get back to the music.

Have a listen:

Rather like house and techno, most of dubstep’s early producers were young lads without much production experience, but they knew their reggae, had a vision and raw energy. Shackleton was always deeper, having played in live bands before immersing himself in machine music, his productions were more refined, better produced and prone to fusion; his tunes compared to your average dubstep banger were what deep house was to rave - they catered for your hips and your head.

Then after a few years he seemingly got fed up with the scene, the fusions became wilder, the experimentation started daring you to follow, vocals became more prominent and some LPs eschewed the dancefloor entirely. Every time he drops and LP I listen start to finish, but I have to admit I was hitting repeat less and less - a lot of it just wasn't quite my cup of tea, although he never lost my respect for a moment.

This last year has seen him collaborating more and with some highly unexpected names, I'm still in shock he released an LP with Six Organs of Admittance a few weeks back, I mean how did that even happen?! Well here he is again with a new collaboration and it’s something of a TSMM dream team as dub deviants Holy Tongue are his new partners in crime.

Holy Tongue are percussionist Valentina Magaletti, producer Al Wootton and the recently recruited bass player Susumu Mukai; I was smitten from their first EP - live, bass heavy jams with all the right effects plus some twists, a bit of post punk attitude and some late night moodiness without being oppressive.

From a personal perspective they’ve also been a good influence on Shackleton, as I guess they laid down a more recognisable dub framework before sending it to Shackleton to augment in his studio rather than letting his imagination run wild from the offset. This is an album you can skank to, though it’s more Adrian Sherwood than King Tubby.

The riddims are a mixture of the righteous, ritualistic & downtempo waywardness, and apart from Magaletti’s percussion, who knows who did what? The soundscapes are dense with plenty for the hi-fi/headphone crew to explore. Free jazz gets a look in, unidentified spectral vocals haunt the soundscapes, the Fourth World’s most forgotten corners are explored and aired - their dwellers encouraged to unite and fight, as familiar instruments jockey with abstract electronics and sound sources unknown. It’s dense, intense and right up my twisted, forward looking dub street.

Need more dub?

There’s a TSMM playlist for that. Check out some classic JA vibes, low frequency evolution & bass mutations from the dub continuum in the Slow Dub Playlist. Available on Tidal, Apple Music, Youtube, Youtube Music, Deezer, Soundcloud and Spotify (if you must).