New Music

Jim Carroll’s guide to future sounds

Floating points: the chord's my shepherd

Every little thing Sam Shepherd has done so far has been magic. The London-based producer’s run of releases has been so perfect, so fully-formed, that it’s hard to believe the twentysomething really has just begun.

The highlights from this classically-trained musician's back-catalogue are already stacking up. Four reasons why Shepherd has become the buzziest producer on the block: the crunchy, bumpy sweep of For You; the spacey, silky, smokey drift of Love Me Like This; the glowing, spectral, innovative wobble of J&W Beatand the tense orchestral voodoo on Vacuum Boogie. No wonder the comparisons to Flying Lotus and Hudson Mohawke keep on coming strong.

Most noteworthy about Shepherd’s work to date has been width and depth. Other producers might settle for cosying up to one sound or another, but Shepherd doesn’t seem to have any problems with scale. Even his live show – featuring a 14-piece live band – is super-sized.

Born in Manchester, Shepherd took his first musical steps when his dad, the local vicar, persuaded him to join the church choir. He studied composition and piano at a local music school, got turned on to jazz by his teachers and started to dig drum’n’bass and techno. He headed to London to study pharmacology, but it was at club nights in Fabric that his real education occured.

It’s all of the above, according to Shepherd, which leads to his particular sound. “I’m a mess. I’ll go from listening to a 17th-century Monteverdi opera to Roska’s new funky offering. I’m completely messed up with what I absorb sonically and I’m never conscious about making a certain sound. I don’t fear where this is taking me, I just do it for the love of sound.”

Not Squares: looney tunes

Once again, the New Music radar focuses on Norn Iron and once again, we come away with a band to rave about. It took about 30 seconds of the forthcoming crackerjack single, Asylum, from Belfast-based Not Squares to make us jump with glee. We wager that we're not going to be the only ones to get such a hit from the trio's brash, belligerent, exuberant punktronica in the months ahead.

Michael Kinloch, Keith Winter and Ricki O’Rawe spent time in other outfits such as Tracer AMC and Gaju before No Squares came calling in 2008. Their live show, where they bring a sweaty, funky-punky party to small rooms or festival stages at Latitude, Reading and Leeds has got people raving about them.

A debut single, Aye Yo Pa, for the Richter Collective label last summer helped to spread the word, while new-music gurus like BBC Radio One's Huw Stephens have been all over the band like a rash.

There’s a debut album in the works for spring 2010, but if you get a chance to check out their screechy, bleepy stunner-pop in a live setting between now and then, seize it with both hands.

Floating Points DJs at Pogo at Twisted Pepper, Dublin on December 5th. www.myspace.com/floatingpoints

Three more

Washed out:Dreamy, gorgeous post-shoegaze sounds and effects from Perry, Georgia native Ernest Greene. Check out the Life of LeisureEP for a splash of sun-dappled bliss.

www.myspace.com/thebabeinthewoods

The Smith Westerns:Chicago teens tearing their way through a slew of makeshift, ramshackle frill-free garage pop. Be My Girlcontains a hook as huge as any Chi-Town skyscraper.

www.myspace.com/smithwesterns

The Candidates:Who wants to funk? Old-school funk and soul given a new-school shine by a bunch of Dublin young ones with cold-chillin' tunes like Ain't No Funk In A&E.

www.myspace.com/funkthecandidates

More news and views on Jim Carroll's blog: www.irishtimes.com/blogs/ontherecord