Floating Points | ||
| Allmusic Biography : Known on dancefloors and tastefully progressive U.K. radio programs as Floating Points, producer and DJ Sam Shepherd applied his love for gritty funk, slick R&B;, and avant-garde jazz to house, techno, and orchestral compositions that tended to be equally stimulating through club sound systems and headphones. After trickling out tracks for several years, the project broke through to a wider audience with the release of the 2015 full-length Elaenia, a richly produced album that to many served as an introduction to Shepherds hybrid style. Shepherd launched Floating Points in 2008 by releasing some white-label singles plus a bootleg remix of Sun Ras "Ill Wait for You." BBC DJ Gilles Peterson picked up on both and featured the two tracks on his Worldwide radio program. Even though Shepherd was finishing his Ph.D. in neuro-science, he found time in 2009 to partner with Rinse FM left-field DJ Alexander Nut and form Eglo, a label that became revered for releases from the likes of FunkinEven and frequent Shepherd collaborator Fatima. Among Shepherds own early highlights for the label were cuts like "Vacuum Boogie" and "Peoples Potential." The producers output became increasingly spacious and musical, as heard in the progression traced through cuts such as "Sais," "King Bromeliad," and "Nuits Sonores." Additionally, Shepherd led the 16-member Floating Points Ensemble for a Ninja Tune single and BBC Maida Vale session that bridged 4heros chamber soul and the work of contemporary West Coast arranger/composer Miguel Atwood-Ferguson. In 2015, after over a dozen releases and roughly as many remixes, Shepherd released the debut Floating Points album, Elaenia, through his Pluto label in the U.K. and David Byrnes Luaka Bop in the U.S. It was celebrated by almost every outlet that covered it, including Resident Advisor, whose staff declared the album the best of the year. In 2016, after Katy Bs Honey sported a track produced by Shepherd and Kieran Hebden, Floating Points returned with Kuiper, an expansive two-track EP. That August, just prior to a U.S. tour, Shepherd and his band rehearsed, recorded, and were filmed in the Mojave Desert. The visit was documented with Reflections: Mojave Desert, a heavier affair released the following June. In 2019, Shepherd participated in the ongoing Late Night Tales series, creating a continuous DJ mix of 17 different tracks that included work of his own as well as deep cut ambient, jazz, and global soul selections. | ||
 | Album: 1 of 8 Title: Vacuum EP Released: 2009-09-03 Tracks: 3 Duration: 22:20 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Vacuum Boogie (06:05) 2 Truly (07:47) 3 Argonaute II (08:28) |
 | Album: 2 of 8 Title: Shadows EP Released: 2011-11-21 Tracks: 5 Duration: 36:51 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Myrtle Avenue (09:57) 2 Obfuse (04:11) 3 Realise (05:26) 4 ARP3 (09:16) 5 Sais (08:01) |
 | Album: 3 of 8 Title: Marhaba Released: 2015-04-20 Tracks: 4 Duration: 43:38 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Mimoun Marhaba (08:18) 2 Bania (11:48) 3 Marhaba (12:12) 4 Tora Tora Torko Lila (11:20) |
 | Album: 4 of 8 Title: Elaenia Released: 2015-11-04 Tracks: 7 Duration: 42:41 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Nespole (05:08) 2 Silhouettes (I, II & III) (10:43) 3 Elaenia (07:15) 4 Argenté (04:34) 5 Thin Air (03:59) 6 For Marmish (05:47) 7 Peroration Six (05:15) |
| Elaenia : Allmusic album Review : Slight and anticlimactic are terms of dissatisfaction that could be used by certain listeners as a reaction to Elaenia, the first full-length from Sam Shepherd, aka Floating Points. Those who have been attentive since the brainiac producers earliest releases are more likely to hear the 43-minute album as a modest culmination of progressions and refinements traceable throughout what preceded it. Shepherd began in 2009 with swinging post-dubstep/house hybrids. Subsequent releases were pared down, increasingly graceful and organic, typified by "Sais," an austere but emotive threading of Carl Craig-style ambient techno and Lonnie Liston Smith-referencing spiritual jazz. Even before that 2011 track, Shepherd had worked as part of a 16-member unit, dubbed Floating Points Ensemble, which took Craigs cross-genre Innerzone Orchestra and 4heros chamber soul a few steps farther out, as a platform for vocalist Fatima. Among the roughly four hours of Floating Points material previously released on singles and as EPs, Elaenia is closest to those highlights, though its almost entirely instrumental, using voices only sparingly in a choral mode. Shepherd plays a variety of keyboards that undulate, twinkle, swarm, and sometimes act merely as shadowy outlines. There are sections when they are delicately layered over one another, sometimes unaccompanied and barely touched, as Shepherds aim, like that of Mark Hollis circa Mark Hollis, is to make moving music that sounds quiet at any volume, simultaneously exacting yet freely flowing. Shepherd directs his supporting players, including drummers Leo Taylor and Tom Skinner, bassist Susumu Makai (aka Zongamin), and a small string section, through a pensively paced sequence. Some tracks could be called mood pieces but are really too defined and substantive to fit that categorization, while the relatively active and as detailed remainder -- "Silhouettes," "Peroration Six" -- is suited more for foot tapping or awestruck stillness than dancing. Just as the latter seems to be on the brink of explosion, as its currents are whipped into a fever pitch, Shepherd pulls the plug, leaving the album to conclude with ten seconds of stunned silence. Elaenia is fated to become one of those albums that inspires ritualistic listening parties held by small groups of audiophiles. That shouldnt be held against it. | ||
 | Album: 5 of 8 Title: Kuiper Released: 2016-05-20 Tracks: 2 Duration: 32:27 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Kuiper (18:23) 2 For Marmish Part II (14:04) |
 | Album: 6 of 8 Title: Reflections - Mojave Desert Released: 2017-06-30 Tracks: 5 Duration: 26:33 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Mojave Desert (02:28) 2 Silurian Blue (06:37) 3 Kites (03:01) 4 Kelso Dunes (10:51) 5 Lucerne Valley (03:36) |
| Reflections - Mojave Desert : Allmusic album Review : During a week-long late-summer 2016 break between U.S. dates, Sam Shepherd and his touring Floating Points band -- guitarist Alex Reeve, guitarist/keyboardist Matthew Kirkis, drummer Leo Taylor, and bassist Susumu Mukai -- settled into the Mojave Desert. Intended as a rehearsal space, the setting inspired Shepherd and company to write, record, and film this 27-minute suite. A few minutes shorter than the preceding Kuiper, which was billed as an EP, Reflections seems to carry the weight of a proper album while functioning as a soundtrack and whimsical divergence at once. Shepherds array of keyboards, including a handful of synthesizers, drive the odd-numbered tracks, all three of which are brief, discreet, sketch-like pieces. "Kites" acts as the noodling, swirling intermediary that links "Silurian Blue" and "Kelso Dunes." The former evokes the freer, more rocking side of early-70s Pink Floyd if they had Kool & the Gangs Ronald Bell sitting in on synthesizer, playing sweeping, almost piercing notes akin to those heard on "Summer Madness." About one-third of the way into its 13 minutes, "Kelso Dunes" achieves liftoff and has more in common with the storming section of "Kuiper." It develops into a psych-prog wig-out that eventually dissipates, then recharges prior to fading out with the sound of desert air and cyclonic synthesizer wisps. Compared to the earlier Floating Points material designed to connect to the head more than the hips, this naturally comes across as underdeveloped, but its engrossing nonetheless. | ||
 | Album: 7 of 8 Title: LateNightTales Released: 2019-03-29 Tracks: 17 Duration: 1:19:24 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Untitled Live in Portland (07:03) 2 Via Láctea (03:14) 3 Glowin’ (04:15) 4 Chains (04:30) 5 Equipoise (06:21) 6 Blood of an American (04:19) 7 Express Your Love (02:49) 8 A Message Especially From God (03:45) 1 Gentle Man (04:50) 2 Sun Blues (01:54) 3 Sea Fluorescent (06:29) 4 Moments in Love (09:23) 5 The Tunnel (09:14) 6 Milk (02:06) 7 Nimb#59 (03:37) 8 The Sweet Time Suite, Part I: Opening (02:48) 9 Ah! Why, Because the Dazzling Sun (02:47) |
 | Album: 8 of 8 Title: LateNightTales: Floating Points Released: 2019-03-29 Tracks: 18 Duration: 2:36:53 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Untitled Live in Portland (07:03) 2 Via Láctea (03:14) 3 Glowin’ (04:15) 4 Chains (04:30) 5 Equipoise (06:21) 6 Blood of an American (04:19) 7 Express Your Love (02:49) 8 A Message Especially From God (03:45) 9 Gentle Man (04:50) 10 Sun Blues (01:54) 11 Sea Fluorescent (06:29) 12 Moments in Love (09:23) 13 The Tunnel (09:14) 14 Milk (02:06) 15 Nimb#59 (03:37) 16 The Sweet Time Suite, Part I: Opening (02:48) 17 Ah! Why, Because the Dazzling Sun (02:47) 18 LateNightTales (Continuous mix) (1:17:29) |