What’s left to say about Benjamin Shaw? Over the years we’ve written about a number of records and projects, each experimenting with guitar loops, 80s synths, samples and field recordings to best bring to life the dystopian present. The results were weird, sad and strangely thrilling, clashing personal ennui off of the hyperactive happiness of our culture, dissonance that served as statements of confusion and critique. As we wrote of 2018’s Megadead:
Perhaps the defining characteristics of Shaw’s music is its ability to transcend its own themes. He may be singing about hating his job, about going nowhere fast, but in doing so colours these things with meaning. To create art is to communicate, and as such the songs represent the antithesis to their own concerns, the simulated happiness and artificial connection punctured through their ironic presence.
The last few months have seen Shaw return with two new EPs, released under the moniker Megadead. Put out back in the summer, Screams, Banging, etc. arrived first and put to bed any worries that the change of name signaled some radical change of direction. There’s a casual heartbreak to the opening sample, a mood that could be said to capture the Megadead spirit. Life is awful and all that.
But more than depressed bummer music, Megadead explores the specific cruelty of our times. The undeniable laughable quality amid suffering. The juxtaposition of the chilled beats on ‘There Must Be a Problem’ with the repeated titular refrain gets to the heart of the record. The sense that something is drastically wrong but there is no space to show it. Smile, think positive. Try meditation. ‘OH NO’ follows through on the uncanny unease, its vivid 80s soundtrack style rippled by wavering glitches, the sampled female voice offering nothing beyond “oh no” or “oh crap” with a kind of exaggerated playfulness. Disappointment and disaster as packaged on the Shopping Channel.
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The result is a sound that mimics our culture. One which refuses unhappiness, and by that very refusal transmogrifies it into something hellishly odd. The jazzy pep of ‘Almost Self-Sufficient’ teeters between energetic and maniacal, wellness messages echoing through the clamour. A constant escalation that stress tests every vessel and connection. Closer ‘HELL YEP’ continues the feeling, pre-packing the religious exaltation of fitness videos and demanding you smile and shout along. After all, if a room is noisy enough, there is little difference between a face seized by joy or pain.
The second EP, Audio Visual Metro Computers, opens with a more explicit ominousness. The sleek beats of ‘Slowdead’ have a nocturnal creep, an inherent meanness. But ‘Maximum Enjoyment’ slinks into the slow dawning ‘Out of the Woods’, and the sense that we’re perhaps breaking free rises. But rather than some new hope, what emerges is strange and enveloping—some electronic interior baffling intricate yet oddly repetitive. A sense of movement that goes nowhere new, progression as a circle through the same backdrops again and again. ‘Out of the woods’ not as some escape, but a full retreat into the digital space.
So ‘What a Difference!’ lands us back where we started, the too-white teeth of self-help advice closing around our heads. Again jazzy flourishes radiate a kind of false positivity, small wisps of chaos sparking in every direction as palatable voices offer their help and the beat continues unabated, as though fired by the tension of the whole experience.
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It’s left for ‘Breaking Open the Head’ to offer the only real human experience on the record. There’s a resignation to the beat but a sense of continuation too, and Shaw’s vocals make their first proper appearance across the two releases. There’s no final triumph, no hope beyond the shallow consolation of keeping on. “It made me feel sick,” he sings, “but I tried.” What else is there to do?
Screams, Banging, etc. and Audio Visual Metro Computers are out now and available from the Megadead Bandcamp page.