Album Review: Surkul– Shush
Album Review: Surkul – SHUSH
January 11, 2022
Adán Falcón
Adán Falcón delves into San Francisco- based producer Surkul’s debut vinyl record. Released on the Hill 88 label last Novemeber, SHUSH is the first of a series of future releases embodying an experimental post-drum and bass sound.
Album Cover via Bandcamp
Something feels old about Surkul’s latest EP, SHUSH. It’s hard not to feel like there’s dust being shaken off in each layer of synths or drums in each track, but this isn’t to say the songs in the EP are dated– far from it. It marks a major progression for Surkul to move away from club-ready drum and bass or jungle tracks. He builds a mood in each track using conventional elements of the genre and deconstructing them, letting each piece of the music float around, sometimes in step with a beat or melody, or, often dissonant from each part, never completely alienating the listener with this approach. Instead, the music creates a state of suspension.
The signs of Surkul’s mastery to disassemble genres in this way shows, given his 20 years as DJ specializing in drum and bass. This EP marks both his second release with Hill 88 and a milestone as the first of his works on vinyl, which is available on Bandcamp. His first mixtape with the label, Northern Audacity, displayed a fuller sound and comfort with drum and bass and jungle. Instead, as he states on his Bandcamp page, there’s an attempt to have the sound more stripped on SHUSH: “The more I stripped back and tried new approaches, the more the tracks came to shape.” Absence is key, oftentimes leaving the listener alone with a sample or beat.
The opening track “Rude Introduction” indicates this approach, as the use of bass samples, synths, and beats contrast against the presence of organic drumming. Layers suddenly disappearing or a break in the song that consists of a sustained note result in disorienting the sense of being in the present or the past, or, in a club or desert. As the slowest track in the EP, this disorientation only sets a more menacing tone compared to how the other tracks pick up and lighten the experience the rest of the way.
The major standout tracks in the EP are the last two, harking back to classic dubstep and drum and bass, with expected characteristics of these genres' sounds only showing up in a scattering of beats and bass lines. Samples appear as ghosts from different times and cultures, from Dub to the sounds of a setar playing. Overall, the pieces may be scattered, but there’s enough space in each track to let the experience of the music breathe and make the EP a worthwhile journey.
Adán Falcón (he/him) is a grad school dropout, writer, and live music fanatic. Nowadays, you can find him running long distance with a playlist of krautrock and early 2000's hip hop, and rummaging record stores for limited edition vinyl.