Shifted

Found­ed in 2011, his label Avian (and exten­sions Drift­ing Over, Mira and Pacif­ic-Blue) have been described as ​‘con­sis­tent­ly cut­ting edge and some­times unclas­si­fi­able, often leav­ing behind lucra­tive areas they help build inter­est in for less­er-explored sounds’. Avian’s rep­u­ta­tion and iden­ti­ty have been shaped and rein­forced by numer­ous defin­ing out­ings from Shift­ed and fur­ther tech­no exper­i­ments by some of his most intrigu­ing contemporaries. 

By chal­leng­ing artists and push­ing them out of their com­fort zone Avian encour­ages them to take risks, explore new ter­ri­to­ries and go above and beyond the com­mon stan­dard. In 2020 Shift­ed will release his fourth album via Avian which will add anoth­er lay­er of detail to his dense and cold­ly colour­ful discography.

With dili­gent analy­sis of son­ic space guid­ed by a call­ing to explore dark­er realms Shift­ed has yield­ed spec­tac­u­lar results on a selec­tion of elec­tron­ic music’s most inno­v­a­tive labels. Through a series of ini­tial EP’s and his debut album, he show­cased his abil­i­ty to embrace a new sound with an iden­ti­ty of his own where deep explo­rations of tex­ture tan­gle with four to the floor beats.

Via his Cov­ered In Sand, Relay and Alexan­der Lewis alias­es, includ­ing his col­lab­o­ra­tive project A Mod­el Author­i­ty, his work became increas­ing­ly avant-garde with refined out­comes of his sig­na­ture sound. Shifted’s two albums on Hos­pi­tal Pro­duc­tions, one under their side label Bed Of Nails, found much acclaim for their exper­i­men­tal meth­ods and dystopi­an under­tones. In these works, he favours abstract and aton­al sounds with painstak­ing atten­tive­ness towards micro­scop­ic son­ic details.

As an artist, Shift­ed looks to the periph­ery of genre, to the fringes of scenes — to the space as yet unex­plored through his own lens. Recon­tex­tu­al­is­ing and reaf­firm­ing influ­ence with rest­less aban­don, the British musician’s work up to this point serves as a tes­ta­ment to an artist with much ground yet to cover.

As a DJ — care­ful prepa­ra­tion, patience and pres­ence of mind have paid div­i­dends over the years. Sets are razor-sharp, stream­lined affairs that eke out the same pal­pa­ble ten­sion found in the artist’s pro­duc­tion work. As com­fort­able on larg­er stages as he is in inti­mate envi­ron­ments, Shifted’s selec­tion process places the focus on tex­ture and rich tonal fin­ish, pri­ori­tis­ing con­ti­nu­ity in form and mate­r­i­al low end to gen­er­ate pow­er­ful, extend­ed per­for­mances that eschew breaks in momen­tum in favour of an explic­it­ly hyp­not­ic dynamism.