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artist.....: Moire
album......: Shelter
year.......: 2014
label......: Werk Discs / Ninja Tune
WDNT011
source.....: CDDA
moodswing..: House
releasesize: 78.41 MB
tracks.....: 09
length.....: 44:56
encoder....: VBR LAME 3.98.4 -v0
quality....: avg. 243kbps
scenealized: 03.26.2015
Since his debut last year, Moire has
lived in the shadow of Actress, the
producer who signed him to Werkdiscs.
They share a bleary-eyed outlook on
electronic music, preferring the same
fuzzy filters and greyscale palette,
but where Actress unspools these
elements into avant-garde soundscapes,
Moire bundles them into dance tracks.
After two strong EPs of fogged-up
techno and house, Moire returns with
the more confident Shelter. Over the
course of the record's 45 minutes, his
formulaùbuilding club tunes with
unstable frames and fuzzy bordersùis in
turns dazzling and tedious.
Shelter offers its own drowsy take on
house, where everything seems to slot
into place almost accidentally.
Sandwiched between kick drums that seem
to drag their feet, ghostly voices and
sharp fragments of sound turn into
powerful melodic devices. On the
ghostly opener "Attitude," which sounds
like a dead ringer for Actress, the
hi-hat and snare limp behind the beat.
Moire's personality comes out better
elsewhere: the bassline on "No Gravity"
shudders out in all directions like a
low-frequency spore cloud, while
"Stars" is disco made as stiff as
plywood. Best of all is the one-two
punch of "Elite" and "Hands On," where
a sleepy slog transforms into piano
house, but so ghostly and translucent
it could only have come from Moire's
studio. When a more decisive kick drum
comes to mark the transition into
"Hands On," the simple shift is the
LP's most exciting moment.
But exciting is an odd word to use for
for Shelter, which exists in a
permanently overcast world. Of course,
that's a key part of its atmosphere,
but the novelty of hearing music this
glum moulded into thumping 4/4 beats
runs dry by around track seven. Add in
a few moments that sound uncomfortably
close to other artists (Galcher
Lustwerk on "Dali House," anyone?) and
you have a debut album that feels
embryonic. Moire clearly has a knack
for building dance tracks out of
strange and sometimes hallucinatory
elements, but something about Shelter
feels too hesitant. There's a near-
perfect EP buried in here somewhere,
and an inventive musical personality
waiting to burst out, but Moire's debut
album does a better job of showcasing
his potential than realizing it.
psst, more info at werkdiscs.com
01 Attitude 06:10
02 Dali House 04:53
03 Elite 04:08
04 Hands On 04:14
05 Infinity Shadow 04:31
06 No Gravity 05:26
07 Stars 05:16
08 Rings 05:15
09 Mr Figure 05:03