Here’s a collaboration that at first seems incongruous, but when you hold a microscope up to the orbital trajectories of Sam Shackleton and Ben Chasny, a latent kinship between the two artists emerges, and it all makes sense. The former arose from the dank cellar of dubstep, while the latter traces a lineage through the vernal landscapes of acid folk. Both investigate the esoteric and the spiritual, conjuring phantasms via dark and mysterious rites. Jinxed by Being is a Venn diagram shrouded in mystery, a series of powerful incantations that commingle the uncanny worlds of both artists, synthesizing a new universe in the process.
The album unfurls languidly, like trails of scented smoke slowly populating a musty chamber. Shackleton uses percussion samples from Chasny’s earliest recordings along with his own beats to craft a ritualistic atmosphere, while Chasny himself deploys his signature voice and arcane guitar melodies. The tracks blend into each other, each one a world in miniature, comprising multiple parts. “The Voice and the Pulse” inhabits a steamy post-apocalyptic space punctuated by atonal reverberations. The two musicians chant from their shared spell book, darkening the atmosphere with an eerie murk. Chasny’s guitar snakes sparingly through the rhythmic pulse of “Open Your Heart” before taking a more forward stance on the opening of “The Grip of the Flesh.” As this piece progresses, a more sinister environment appears, populated by Shackleton’s deft beat work. The two spellcasters weave a blackened narrative over the bass-heavy rhythm, heading deeper underground with every punishing beat.
The crepuscular thread continues throughout the remainder of Jinxed by Being, expressed in a variety of shades and textures. Some tracks veer closer to Shackleton’s orbit while others meander near Chasny’s twilit meadows. Both worlds are represented amply, as the album is a séance that calls forward two seemingly disparate entities while simultaneously creating a new being representative of the Shackleton/Chasny dyad.
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