SHIT & SHINE :: NO NO NO NO (Ooh-Sounds)

NO NO NO NO is a short listen like a cheap high that will have you coming back again and again to chase its mysteries down and inhale the vapors it leaves in your ears. SHIT & SHINE is one artist to keep in mind while preparing for a weird, wild and wonderful trip.

Imagine an alternate universe where NWA, The Geto Boys, Autechre, Matmos, Negativland, and Scorn are sent up into a rocket together only to get exposed to cosmic rays which morph them into one single strange and loud being. That being would be SHIT & SHINE.

SHIT & SHINE hails from Austin, Texas USA where they create music that’s graced such labels as Edition Mego, Diagonal, Rocket. NO NO NO NO (Ooh-Sounds) is a grimy, shattered work of genius. The album is a mix of cut-up, glitch, sampled work that ranges from hip-hop to whatever the hell universe Autechre has opened up where FM-synthesized tones can rewrite your DNA if you listen close enough.

“NO NO NO NO,” the eponymous title track perfectly portrays the frustration of modern American life, where someone tries to navigate the depths of a debt relief service agent’s mind over granulated beats and tones. “Tecvo OOH” is driven by a rigid beat which pin down samples and screwed voices getting waterboarded with random reverb drops. “57YOUYOI-DRINKIN” drops a stuttering 909 beat and faded, tremolo swaying drunken sub-bass that hold steady while sampled voices jump in and out of view and earshot as fat 303 bass squelches provide the closest damn thing you’ll get to a melody on this track and perhaps the album. “3AXA3” rocks hard reverb drench stabs and swelling bass in a quasi-ambient affair possibly driven by GBH mixed with cough syrup. “WHO ARE YOU?” uses a solid hip-hop be with the chipping sharp chords and the mutated voice of someone complaining about “the artist” which sound like a mutated voicemail SHIT & SHINE must’ve received. The quasi-upbeat tempo-ed “GENEVA-LUGANO” is the sound of a speedy train right through the alps while suffering from a fever, where an angular beat stutters and stilts under wobbling organ chords while pitch-shifted samples of news clips drop in and out. “YATES AND PASADENA” could be the backing track for Tom Waits if he went electronic, with its hard kick and staccato drums holding forth as sampled vocals dance in and out like dead rats on a string. Eventually the drums devolve into sporadic drum solos of tight beat deviations and strange warbles.

NO NO NO NO is a short listen like a cheap high that will have you coming back again and again to chase its mysteries down and inhale the vapors it leaves in your ears. SHIT & SHINE is one artist to keep in mind while preparing for a weird, wild and wonderful trip.

NO NO NO NO is available on Ooh-Sounds.