Shackleton With Anika - Behind The Glass (2017)

The new release on Woe to The Septic Heart sees the maverick psychedelic ritual trance maestro Shackleton team up with the enigmatic chanteuse Anika to produce a staggeringly powerful statement with layer upon layer of musical depth and complexity and an emotional quality that is both haunting and moving at the same time. Anika who is perhaps best known for her Self titled debut album produced by Geoff Barrow's Beak and who has also collaborated with artists as diverse as Jandek and Neu's Michael Rother narrates a tale of love longing fate and compulsion which stretches out in the style of a surreal fable. Her deadpan vocals and priestlike sermons meanwhile stand in direct counterpoint to the tales of unbridled lust fury and the themes of dominance and submission in the world of love romance and all their related afflictions. Meanwhile Shackleton of Skull Disco and Honest Jon's semi fame provides a vivid backdrop of infinitely detailed sonic complexity that conjures up something between devotional music and avant trance with the use nonstandard time signatures often running against each other an unusual and occasionally atonal sound palette repetitive melodic motifs and a blatant disregard for the conventional 3 minute song format. The whole is unapologetically ambitious in its scope. Although there is a humour running all the way through the release the themes are anything other than trivial whilst the music is not intended as entertainment but rather as a work that rewards repeated listening and engagement on the part of the listener.