Musicians work under different aliases for a number of reasons, the most prominent being to reset or deter expectations. This happens often in the world of dance or electronic music. There’s often a certain utility to it, with producers siloing off their house and techno works, knowing they’ll appeal to different audiences. Sometimes the reasoning is more pragmatic: to avoid legal problems or, for the prolific, to ease DJs into buying multiple records by a single artist. Floating Points, nee Sam Shepherd, has avoided hitting the moniker-reset button despite vast differences between his early work (soulful house music), last year’s Elaenia (jazzy, electronic composition) and his work as a DJ (in which he spins anything he can get you to dance to, from Brazilian obscurities to disco edits to dub).
On his new EP Kuiper, Shepherd makes radical moves even between the two side-long tracks. First up is the title track, a burly, 18-minute groove recorded with his Elaenia touring band. The least polite moment in a well-mannered discography, “Kuiper” finds the band clenching its fist and revving up to a stormy kosmische pace, like Neu! with steroids and 40 years of additional recording technology on their side. It’s a setup that downplays Shepherd’s modular synthesizer in favor of a squall of live-sounding drums and eighth-note bass plucks. The feel is not dissimilar to the extended jams that other live/electronics bands like LCD Soundsystem and Caribou (Dan Snaith and Shepherd often DJ together) end songs with, though the pealing guitar adds a dash of prog. The moody guitar solo at the end is deflating endpoint to a well-trodden path, but Shepherd’s band nonetheless exhibits a rare combination of restraint and brawn.
The second track, “For Marmish Part II,” is nominally a riff on the Elaenia track of the same name. It’s a return to the composed elegance of that album, 14 minutes of Shepherd varying short, meditative riffs on his Rhodes piano and cooing wordlessly. There’s very little build, and the overall feel is almost Reich-ian in its simplicity and focus, at least until the massive, subby kick drum ruptures the surface, Shepherd's synthesizer circling above like a flock of gulls. It’s a beautiful contrast, and one that highlights Shepherd’s continued interest in clarity and fidelity. These are masterful recordings that, despite their style, shouldn’t really be seen as headphone music; a good stereo system will reveal additional detail, especially in the low end. “For Marmish Part II” climaxes with a series of massively distorted kicks, rending the calm Shepherd’s organ so meticulously created.
Shepherd has made an odd transformation, originally working in a medium (house music) largely reliant on samples, and ending up the maestro of a band playing the types of obscure styles—post-rock, minimal composition, jazzy prog—that often end up as sample fodder. His commitment to quality and easy lilting melodies help him stand out, but it’s a little disappointing that his polyglot taste as a DJ doesn’t rear its head more often in his recorded material. Still, Kuiper extends the graceful Elaenia, even mussing its well-kept hair on the title track. For now, at least, this is what we can think of when we think of Floating Points.
