{"product_id":"snake-chain","title":"Snake Chain","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShake Chain\u003c\/strong\u003e is a four-piece band from London, consisting of Robert Syres on guitar and synth, Chris Hopkins on bass and synth, and Joe Fergey on drums. All members are artists from Goldsmiths College, Nottingham Trent, and Wimbledon, University of the Arts.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA mutual love of thought-provoking performance art and a yearning for disruption have helped Shake Chain lock into their wayward sound. Twitchy guitar lines jolt and jerk, synths burble noisily, and tack-sharp drums pin things down for Kate’s reeling vocal to vault and slur. Kate’s singing has drawn comparisons with Yoko Ono, Su Tissue, and even a seance with its unique embrace of flights of atonal fancy, head-first repetition, and ecstatic frenzy. Opinion-dividing arguably, but singular in making Shake Chain dauntingly brilliant.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShake Chain’s\u003c\/strong\u003e debut album \u003cem\u003eSnake Chain\u003c\/em\u003e was recorded in the New Forest’s Chuckalumba Studios early in 2022. The tranquil setting only slightly skewed by the intense extratropical cyclone occurring outside. When asked to sum up the album, the group collectively settled on it sounding like “crying in a Catholic sex dungeon with Eastenders on”, perhaps only half tongue in cheek given the soapy dramatics of opening track ‘Stace’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e‘RU’ is a stompy triumph of ad lib monotony, heavy and wonky, its vocal slowly unwinding into residual sense. Shake Chain’s songs are populated with cowboys, cherry-pickers, content-addicts, private investments, a careless driver called Mike, architects, and by much lamentation at the state of our confusing existences. This last point underlined in luminous marker pen with slow-building vortex ‘Highly Conceptual’ and whispered closer ‘Duck’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e‘Copy Me’ races along with radiant headbangs of dynamic abandon, one part tumble, two parts pummel, “hold your breath til something changes” commands Kate whilst everything of course is in hammering flux. ‘Second Home’ is similarly coruscating yet buoyant, whilst ‘Arthur’ feels like it could tear inside in two amid sobbing wails and the twining of its disparate parts.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThroughout all the unhinged freakouts, found sounds, and blasting rhythms though is Kate’s questioning, resilient presence, anchoring everything. On bruising creeper ‘Birthday’ she asks most tellingly “Do we speak language or does language speak us? Is there a mouth in the middle of the desert? Do you ask how cups are designed? Would you say yes when you really mean I don’t know”? Shake Chain are cathartic and absurd, humorous and deadly serious yet always inspired. It's this tightrope walk which makes their album such a thrilling, vital listen.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTrack Listing:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Upset The Rhythm","offers":[{"title":"Red | LP","offer_id":50477293240651,"sku":"1166198","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/6f886372-72bd-4ab0-91de-0643639b72db_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727468269","url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/products\/snake-chain","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}