30 Mar 2024
UsernamePassword

Remember Me? | Join | Recover
Click here to sign in via social networking

Social Shun - Album Review: Songs For Sea Lions

03 Mar 2017 // A review by Peter-James Dries

This album was not intended to be listened to by humans. To my Sea Lion friends, I know your struggles, I know your pain. Time to rise up and bask in the Glory of Sir Swims In Circles.

Now if there is ever an album I expected to come out the other side of thinking “WTF did I just listen to?!” this would be that album.

I could have expected this manoeuvre from Social Shun; an artist who doesn’t care what you think, so much so that he has made an album specifically for the ears of Sea Lions titled Songs for Sea Lions.

It’s not a new concept. Albeit in the fiction universe, Dethklok’s Dethwater, an album only meant to be heard by fish is another example, and this was before a research group accidentally discovered sharks like Death Metal music. I’m sure there were many other forgotten LPs from the Acid soaked 60s released with a similar target audience.

The only WTF moment was realising this is better than I could have ever expected. Despite the concept, maybe even because of the concept, this is easily the most palatable of the three Social Shun albums I’ve come across so far. This is something that could sit on the Radioactive Wellington or Radio Control Palmerston North Student/Underground radio stations.

There’s a more consistent tone across the entire album, with less genre fusions and experimental knob tweaking solos. No distorted screams. Like lo-fi snippets from Nine Inch Nail’s Ghosts, without the soft edges and moody textures Trent Reznor became so obsessed with after the Fragile.

And it’s more refined, less Chaotic. Perhaps the product of a mind more focused on where they want this music to be going, or an artist who has found their groove. Maybe without the pressure of performing for close minded sheep like the majority of the music consuming market, Social Shun can be free to just do what he does.

And what he does now is Drum and Bass for the Underwater Junglist. Although I don’t have the technology, or the bath tub for an underwater listening session to be like the Sea Lion, the appeal in the land air is there.

That’s not to say Social Shun has forgone all of the inside humour of the previous albums. Is mayonnaise an instrument? No, but Sea Lion is an instrument on this album, which is not only for Sea Lions, but by Sea Lions. And then there is the absurdist spoken word poem in the middle, which fools you into a false nature documentary and leaves you with something unusual on the level of Kurt Vonnegut or David Firth’s Salad Fingers.

Songs For Sea Lions is how I imagined Industrial to sound before I actually heard it; that solid beat of a decimated machine layered with the whirring of rotting electric wiring. Never building up to anything, just performing the task then ending. Like a good little gimpy machine. The lack of build-up to a rise, and the vestigial Verse/Chorus/Verse structure kind of makes you wish for an hour mix of some of the tracks, however impractical such a concept would be. Something of a soundtrack to me pushing through the stream of pedestrians on sidewalks during the lunch hour.

What’s next for Social Shun? How do you live up to the expectations when you’re at the top of your game? What other species can he cater to?

Perhaps the acoustic Shunned EP will be new direction, and open the music up to a new audience. But then again, the audience never mattered to Jason, not the human ones, although being from the same tortured bedroom artist world; I know it would be nice to know they’re there sometimes.

You can find Songs For Sea Lions on the Social Shun Bandcamp.

Being as it was never made to be heard by humans, it’s a free/pay what you want download, which works well for Sea Lions, who aren’t known for their internet shopping.

If you come across a sea lion, shake its hand and say howdy, as they are the true holders of the keys of a modern utopia.

 

About Social Shun

Social Shun became official after releasing tracks on Reverbnation in 2011 but He has been mucking round with music software and instruments for nine years.

Social Shun is a solo project and was made to release pain, stress, anger, boredom and frustration of day to day living in a positive creative way. The straight forward approach to music and lyrics is key, Promoting honesty and freedom of speech in a raw, direct, in your face fashion. Not shackled to one Genre Social Shun infuses many different aspects and vibes of music.


Visit the muzic.net.nz Profile for Social Shun

Releases

What A Weevil 1
Year: 2022
Type: Album
What A Weevil 2
Year: 2022
Type: Album
What Is Music
Year: 2020
Type: Album
7/10 of A Fridge
Year: 2020
Type: EP
Songs For Sea Lions
Year: 2017
Type: Album
Big Gorilla
Year: 2015
Type: Album
The Garden Of Sweden
Year: 2014
Type: Album

Other Reviews By Peter-James Dries

Yann Le Dorré - Album Review: The Circus is Closed
19 Dec 2023 // by Peter-James Dries
“We are Sex Bob-Omb and we're here to make you think about death and get sad and stuff!” - Scott Pilgrim vs.
Read More...
Sanoi - Album Review: Echoes Of Home
25 Nov 2023 // by Peter-James Dries
Electronica offers no escapism for me. It’s more of what I already have.
Read More...
Throng - EP Review: Decoherence
20 Oct 2023 // by Peter-James Dries
You know that thing where the letter B has a personality, or words have textures and colours? That’s called synaesthesia.
Read More...
Fortress Europe - Album Review: Old World
10 Oct 2023 // by Peter-James Dries
Have you ever been torn between listening to Mozart or Periphery? Does Epica have too much of that darn singing for your tastes?
Read More...
Yurt Party - Album Review: Yurt Party
07 Sep 2023 // by Peter-James Dries
It sure isn't summer, and this is really not the Balkans, but Yurt Party’s new self-titled album refutes that. Back with another one of them Balkan rocking beats, Yurt Party’s debut is jazzy, erratic, and full of zest and energetic grooves, with flavour notes of ska, dub, and bergamot.
Read More...
day13n - Album Review: /7/13/7/
06 Aug 2023 // by Peter-James Dries
I’m too old for this world. We’ve devolved to the point where music is only as good as the soundtrack to your 10 second TikTok, and the thirty thousand copies recycling the idea.
Read More...
The New Existentialists - Single Review: Invocation
16 Jul 2023 // by Peter-James Dries
The New Existentialists, a doom metal band known for their dark and atmospheric soundscapes, have just… Wait a minute… No. The New Existentialists are really not a doom metal band, and they’re really not known for their dark soundscapes… They’re more known as stalwarts of a bygone era.
Read More...
Samuel Philip Cooper - Album Review: Journey to Sobriety
01 Jun 2023 // by Peter-James Dries
Samuel Philip Cooper sits on the brink of social media stardom, with videos of his belting out pop music piano covers from behind a pair of thick spectacles racking up views and likes on Insta. Little do any of the mindless doom scrollers swiping through his reels know, but percolating behind his eye brows is the very key to their very salvation.
Read More...
View All Articles By Peter-James Dries

NZ Top 10 Singles

  • WE CAN'T BE FRIENDS (WAIT FOR YOUR LOVE)
    Ariana Grande
  • BEAUTIFUL THINGS
    Benson Boone
  • END OF BEGINNING
    Djo
  • LOSE CONTROL
    Teddy Swims
  • TEXAS HOLD 'EM
    Beyonce
  • STICK SEASON
    Noah Kahan
  • PRAISE JAH IN THE MOONLIGHT
    YG Marley
  • CARNIVAL
    Kanye West And Ty Dolla $ign
  • SATURN
    SZA
  • LOVIN ON ME
    Jack Harlow
View the Full NZ Top 40...
muzic.net.nz Logo
100% New Zealand Music
All content on this website is copyright to muzic.net.nz and other respective rights holders. Redistribution of any material presented here without permission is prohibited.
Report a ProblemReport A Problem