The Galway DJ and producer has released his first ever collection of original music is out today.
After 10 years presiding over parties and DJing all over the world, Shampain has released his debut mixtape Catching Up With Myself, the first of more to come in the next 12 months.
When not presenting a TV show on TG4 about subcultures, jointly running a barber shop, doing alternative silent film soundtracks, repping Galway with big stage events and running G Town Records with Kettama, running a mixed media / magazine and label called Freak while Djing from China to Cork and everywhere in between.
Here’s the EP and Shampain’s track by track on the release:
1. looking 4 synthia
The whole point of ‘Catching Up With Myself’ was sort of to act as a taster to the other 2 EPs I’ve finished up that will (hopefully) see the light of day before the end of the year.
This opening track features a synth line from a track you’ll hear more of in the future and I guess I constructed this using a sort of structure that I heard on ‘Spider Formation’ by Jeff Mills.
The synth line sounds like a 70s horror film and then I wanted the drums to sort of add this anxiety while not overpowering the rest of the track and the EP at the same time.
2. Repetitive Brain Injury
This was the first track I got started on when it came to this project. I have really struggled to make a clubby song that’s just a classic repetitive dance track.
I think I started off with the synth, wanting to go down a sort of Raptor house route à la DJ Babatr and then went from there – it hurts my head to really meticulously loop things, because I record stuff like and then arrange, mix and do everything else in Audacity!
I got to play this out in Oil Club in Shenzhen and it went down so well it sort of spurred me on to flesh this out as a full project.
3. One Royal Morning feat. Bethany
This one came about as I was watching tons of Regal86 & 1morning’s Instagram stories while they were on tour in the US, hence the name – I wanted to make something that sounded like what they were playing in those snippets.
The drums really just came together so naturally cos I finally managed a way to make a really chuggy bass kick and synth leads have been coming easily so I structured it around those two ‘drops’ – after that the name more so began to take shape around the massive synth in the breakdown as it feels quite like a beautiful morning walking down the canal in Galway.
I added in these barn owl and traffic light sounds and at that point I knew I had a banger on my hands so I had to ask Bethany to lend her vocals and poetry to the track. She is one of the most talented people I know and it’s an immense pleasure to both add her vocal and have creative freedom to thread it into the track like that.
4. Based Against Time
This track took many, many twists and turns before it came to fruition but it was primarily inspired by watching Plaqueboymax streams when I had the flu a couple of months ago.
I was listening to a lot of Nettspend, Xaviersobased, Esdeekid and S1nn6r at the time and watching these guys make tracks so I wanted to use my knowledge of dance music and channel it through the current underground rap lens.
The drums are just heavily distorted 808s put through a guitar pedal along with my trusty synth adding extra percussion. I could not get that synth line to sit at all but was determined to make it work as it was from a previously abandoned project and I felt like it needed a home.
I decided to sort of create this massive tension and then use the release to showcase how powerful the drums were by cutting it altogether at the peak – a style I guess I picked up from the weightless era of UK techno around 2018/19 led by Chevel, Pinch, Logos etc.
5. Shenzhen 7eleven.
Unfortunately this was not made in Shenzhen, it’s an older track meant for a different project, but I think similarly to the first track it’s like a sign of what’s to come.
Really scary and ominous – I’m just so into that encroaching bass that sounds like a poisonous substance engulfing its prey…… The name comes from a 9am trip to 7eleven in Shenzhen after an all-nighter and mentally this was playing in my head as I tried to figure out what flavour the different packets of sweets were.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005 . He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Cara Magazine, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, founder of Lumo Club, club promoter, event curator and producer of gigs, listening parties & events in Dublin.
