[Avian]

Despite having just three releases to his or her credit, new producer Shifted has already made his/her mark on underground techno. The most noticeable aspect of this stealthy rise, however, is that none of the releases sound too similar. Ironically, this could be seen as putting Shifted at a disadvantage in the techno field. Unlike, say, a Basic Channel release or more recently a Mike Dehnert record, there is not as yet a “Shifted sound” that could guarantee valuable purchase-on-sight sales. But surely in most cases playfulness and a willingness to experiment are preferable attributes than plowing the same furrow that yields increasingly smaller returns? So while Shifted’s Mote-Evolver release was reminiscent of new school artists like Samuli Kemppi and the Syndrome Z joint called to mind classic Detroit techno given a contemporary twist, this debut on Shifted’s own label teems with other possibilities.

The untitled A side is based on a slamming, dense groove — imagine a more upfront Skudge or Ben Sims taking it down a few notches — but it’s the small details that impress. In this instance, it’s the eerie, chiming bells at the outset or the panning, sludgy river of abstract sounds unleashed midway through which suddenly dries up only to make an appearance in a more boisterous, filtered form as the track climaxes. Shifted also deserves praise for the claustrophobic, ghostly ambience on “B1,” but they reserve the killer blow for the final untitled cut, “B2.” There, the producer again focuses attention on a heavy, filtered approach, but this description only tells a small part of the story. Like Skudge, it’s the traces of samples, the half-heard snippets that engage the listener. On “B2,” these heavenly fragments include the austere, angular percussion and metallic pinprick samples floating in the ether, or the way that the doubled-up, foreboding claps appear to hold the arrangement together. It is these qualities, rather than playing a guessing game about who is behind the machines, that makes the Shifted project such a fascinating proposition. Given the individualistic approach on each release so far however, wondering what the next Shifted release will sound like is also a perfectly valid activity.