A trio of pioneering New Zealand musicians have come together to create an EP of lo-fi industrial trance. DJN (Rome/Drone), Mike Hodgson (Pitchblack/Tinnitus) and Sean O'Reilly (King Loser) are Transcendental Learning Collective and with Shift, they invite listeners into a cyberpunk landscape of repetitive motifs and grungy guitar.
Opening track, 'Munt in E7', is a grinding number filled with static and chants of “burn the air”. It represents the collective’s sound well with stretched out rhythms and a sense of structure amongst chaos. Fans of Bailterspace will appreciate the dark, post-apocalyptic swirls around both this song and it’s follow up, Robo. Mechanics and angst appear to mesh until the novelty robot vocals arrive on Robo and spin it into a farce.
'5/4' is the pick of the album. It maintains the grating cogs of static while injecting fuller vocals and synoptic beats with more variance. Its pulsing gives the song a real energy that pushes it, and the EP, forward.
