Features

Rupture and Shadatek

There are two words to strike terror into the hearts of any music fan: Concept. Album.

And yet there are times when the opposite is true, such as Solar Life Raft, the fascinating new project from Jace 'DJ/rupture' Clayton and Matt Shadetek.

"We'd been talking a lot about an imaginary world of New York, 30 years in the future, underwater," explains Shadetek. "We have characters that first appeared on [2008's] Uproot, so we developed a story where these guys live on top of buildings, there are octopus all around, there's water, and they make music on little solar-powered cellphones. It's a kind of optimistic apocalypse; strategies for surviving and making music after it."

The record digs in with dubstep, reggae, dance and Finnish folk snippets whilst creating its atmosphere. The sonics are never straight-laced; there's a whole world going on here that is intriguing – and intriguingly visual in feel. Something that engenders further conceptual development.

"We're working with an Italian artist called Sara Taigher on animation for this," explains /rupture. "It's come out really great, Sara really killed it. It's nuts. The possibilities are totally exciting."

So what next? "A video game!" the pair laugh.

Solar Life Raft is the culmination of several years' collaboration for the pair, as producers/beat-makers on various projects, but this is the first time they say they've had a real chance to directly work together, a process that both say was fun, quick and easy. What helped matters along was /rupture's recent move back to Brooklyn from Barcelona, where he'd spent much of the previous decade.

"Barcelona is a great place to live, it's beautiful and relaxing and there are a number of people making music," he says, "but it's nothing compared to the hive of activity that is NYC."

"I was in Berlin at the time," offers Shadetek. "Europe is wonderful for the arts, food, clubs and standard of living, but the flipside is that half the artists I knew in Berlin were on government welfare smoking weed and making music - not great for your artistic output. New York is horribly expensive, stressful, but at the same time that keeps you at a very high pace which goes into your work. New York is always on."

Solar Life Raft is comprised of music from friends, friends-of-friends and tracks that 'fitted the concept' according to /rupture - from Gang Gang Dance through Jahdan Blakkmore to chanting choirs. The journey is appropriately world-spanning. The unmixed disc of the original tracks is an excellent companion that pulls back the curtain; the pair are keen to demystify the process.

"It's insecure to keep 'trade secrets'," says Shadetek. "So take a look under the hood, see what we did, be inspired by it or whatever and go and make your own thing. Why close it off?"

A concept worth sharing.

Words: Joe Shooman

Shadetek takes us through our exclusive Secret Knowledge Mix...

"It's different from Solar Life Raft in that Solar Life Raft stays in 140 dubstep BPM range whilst the mix is a lot of 128 kinda area, dancehall, UK funky, weird housey stuff I've been making. SLR is a snapshot of nine months ago and this is where my head is at now. Also it's me on my own so you can pull out my half of SLR."

"I'm working on a soundtrack to an imaginary remake of The Shining," adds Jace. "Except set in Dubai instead of Colorado. A lot of strange bass sounds and broken air-conditioners, that kinda thing."

A whole new story in the making...