So on the surface at least, it’s a return to type for an artist who has traditionally worked at the gloomy end of the spectrum. But on closer inspection it’s more than that. Written in the aftermath of significant family bereavements Tragedy, Doom & So On is an album about finally relenting and confronting the grief that has been held at arm’s-length for too long. Shaw’s usual sense of misanthropy is replaced with quiet contemplation inspired by those small, mundanely devastating moments, creating space to ruminate on loss and regret and attempt to come to terms with the past.

“I wanted to make something that purposely came from these feelings,” Shaw explains. “Reading old guilt-filled emails from my dad, wearing the terrible ill-fitting watch that my grandad gave me, watching videos of sweet Ned the cat, and seeing what music might come out. All with the plan that I’d have to spend a lot of time listening, editing and mixing these compositions and so actually spend time feeling this stuff rather than pushing it away.”

The result is perhaps the most mature Megadead/Benjamin Shaw release to date. One where the familiar elements—synths, sad melodies and creative use of vocal samples—are utilised toward this different headspace. From the oddly melancholic opening of ‘Hello Friend’, which builds on sombre synths with samples of a robotic voice, the syrupy hellos and goodbyes evoking an uncanny valley type of uneasiness. For a song with no conventional lyrics, it somehow captures the complicated mixture of feelings that are bundled up as “grief”. The pure base-level sense of loss shadowed by a creeping alienation, where platitudes and consolations lose their meaning and begin to sound strange and unreal.

The wistful atmosphere continues across the record, from the instrumental ‘See you at the hotel’ to ‘Inhale Down, Exhale Down’, one of several tracks which incorporate snippets of breathing exercise instruction. Perhaps the most emotional moment comes at the midpoint in ‘Song For Ned’, a straight-up beautiful ode to a pet cat which ends on a thrumming purr, proving equal parts comforting and heartbreaking.

But there’s something else at play across the album too. Something beyond the loss and regret. It’s present throughout if you listen closely, but there’s a moment in the slow-burning title track which feels like it revealing itself more plainly, where murmured synths and ambient recordings of indistinct voices give way to a shimmering glow. A certain enlightenment, a state conjured not by solutions to problems but rather a mind starting to accept them. A feeling which, once apparent, emanates across the remaining tracks. Despite it’s title, ‘With great regret’ has a sense of forward motion that feels constructive if not confident, and ‘Stay?’ sounds genuinely hopeful. Penultimate track ‘You died’ approaches the overarching themes most directly, a song about closure and forgiveness after the fact. It’s one of few songs with vocals proper, Shaw singing its repeated refrain with real purpose.

You died but all’s forgiven

All that’s left then is the closing track, ‘When I think about the future’, an eight minute outro which pairs warm drones with glittering electronics that sound almost like birdsong. There’s only one line, repeated intermittently throughout, sometimes chopped up and distorted but with the same implication. “When I think about the future,” says the voice, before hesitating. “I… hmm…” As a closing note it’s an uncertain one, like that weird come-down after a period of emotion. The message seems to be that after trying to untangle, or at least accept, the knot of the past, what comes next is no more certain, but will perhaps be faced from more even ground.

Tragedy, Doom & So On is out now on cassette and digital download via Hand drawn Hand and available to purchase via Bandcamp. UPDATE: The tapes are now sold out, so if you want one you’ll need to badger the label for a second run.

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Since adopting Megadead as a moniker, Shaw continued this project with an increasingly experimental hand. A couple of EPs last year established the project’s willingness to push further beyond the confines of previous work, and Shaw’s output in 2021 has been no less ambitious. Take 31 Songs About Murder, a collection which drew on ambient, electronic and hip hop to create a collection of cinematic vapourwave snippets which sampled the murder mystery shows from an old timey radio station. What Shaw described as “mini bops, half songs, and top drawer bangers,” all based on killing. 

This month, Shaw returned with what he describes as the “first proper Megadead album,” Authentic Country Music. But true to Megadead’s subversive spirit, it turns out authentic country music doesn’t involve banjos or pedal steel, at least not directly. Instead Shaw has dug through a plethora of crates to build up a library of samples, then matched these with idiosyncratic pop and trip hop beats, weaving a vivid plunderphonic patchwork. A sound a world away from the dismal depressed pop which made Benjamin Shaw’s name, and one all the more triumphant for it. 

The expansive ‘Lo, We Are Bound!” introduces this new widescreen sound, swirling with all the lofty mystery and insistent drama of an made-for-TV eighties documentary, or Oneohtrix Point Never’s soundtrack to Uncut Gems. Effervescent electronics introduce ‘Chief of the Dead’, infusing the track with a kind of infectious energy which lasts across its sidewinding length even as the track spits and spins in different directions, before ‘The Murder Card’ gives the first taste of bona fide country music, albeit of the Scandinavian variety.

‘It goes / It gone’ continues the televisual aesthetic, its moody noir tones and pressing electronics playing like the opening credit sequence of the coolest PI show you’ve never seen. ‘She protec but she also attac’ is equal parts horror soundtrack and nineties hip hop chill bop, while ‘Country Music!’ rolls the dice and throws another combination together, emerging as a kind of European dance hit. Closer ‘Dead Metal’ is equally off-the-wall, a prog/psych hybrid which builds through strange and portentous vibes but ends up vast and affirming.

More than experiments in genre, each of the songs furthers Shaw’s thematic concerns. Take standout ‘Out Spaced’, a track which lives up to its title with cosmic beats interspersed by spoken samples regarding the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Not only is it a fantastic example of Shaw’s playful sensibilities, it’s a continuation of the classic Shaw theme. For while the juxtaposition of transportive sounds and down-to-earth charm capture an entertaining humour, there’s something heart-breaking too. A lesson in imagination which conjures a collective failure of that very quality, or else a willingness to submit too readily to its escape.

The result is to situate the listener away from the presented population. To invoke a sense of remove from others, a distance that can never quite be bridged. A fact Megadead might approach more obliquely, but approaches all the same. Which is to say, the turn to pop and prog is not some triumph over the prior gloom, rather the logical progression of a lasting condition. If Benjamin Shaw’s oeuvre represents a picture of an artist positioned at an angle to the world, then Authentic Country Music finds them having retired all hopes of fitting in. So why not redirect those energies, and start to have some fun?

Authentic Country Music is out now and available from the Megadead Bandcamp page.

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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.

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.

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.

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