Joel Shanahan has spent years relentlessly gigging through dive bars and art spaces while maintaining a steadfast commitment to the DIY music life. His project Golden Donna caught the attention of Not Not Fun back in 2012, and in the intervening years he’s been a regular fixture on both NNF and 100% Silk. His shape-shifting sounds found an ideal home with the California crew, deftly weaving between experimental synthesizer works and dance-adjacent headphone rhythms. In that decade and a half, Shanahan decamped from Wisconsin to Oregon, continues running his Signal Dreams imprint, and has been fine tuning his sounds while continuing to play shows and DJ.
Beaming in from the persistent drizzle and grey skies of the Pacific Northwest, Shanahan’s latest dispatch as Auscultation is appropriately muggy, introverted, and dense with evergreen IDM flourishes. Arriving 6 years after the project’s last LP and, as described by 100% Silk, “polished and shelved between bursts of inspiration and malaise”, ‘IV’ is a fitting continuation of the Auscultation sound: knotty, multi-faceted synths and drum patterns serving up a collage of neon-drenched house, hints of dub, and overgrown midi funk.
On tap for this premiere is “Precarious”, the thoughtful, pensive closing track of ‘IV’. Building on a guitar sample slowed down to a droney, syrupy crawl, “Precarious” introduces a low slung, sliding bass line, crisply dusty percussion, and buoyant synths that end the album in a ruminative state but with the tiniest ray of sun breaking through the clouds.
IV is scheduled for release on 5th June via 100% Silk. Order a copy from Bandcamp.
TRACKLIST
1. Dysania
2. Mend
3. Lusting
4. Pinned
5. Severed Cord
6. Hazel Vacancy
7. Precarious