Shawn Locus - The Perfection Misguided

Release date: 10/27/2023

Shawn Locus is a new addition to the Carpe Sonum roster, but Locus' obvious alacrity with all things softly synthetic and sequenced heralds a brash new talent. At first glance, track titles don’t belie tangerine dreams as much as something wicked this way comes: “Tormented By A Living Paradise” and “Digesting the Corpse of All Existence” suggests that Locus is hardly interested in whiling away the days staring at little fluffy clouds. Titular imagery aside, there is something of a slight edge drawn about these engaging digital paradoodles, but the artist appears wholly infatuated with what analog and digital tools can illustrate rather than getting lost in atmospheric reverie. Bleeps, bloops, and reverberations abound, punching through the air like materializing UFOs; microscopic sounds bray and billow as they’re coaxed from candy-colored filters and sentient plug-ins; pulsations mimic the silky hues of marimbas and vibraphones as they cluster about environments originated out of furry modules and gently sculpted plasma. In short, the burbles, bangles, and beads that render so much electronica endlessly magnetic and attractive are in full display here, ripe for the picking and ready for immersion. Is there in truth no beauty?

Artist statement: I would like to provide a bit of creative context behind the process that inspired this project. Some of the album’s dark ambient themes originated from conversations with death/black metal musicians, whom prior to befriending I presumed to be nihilistic or unstable. However, after getting to know them and the philosophies behind their music, surprisingly I found them to be ethical, compassionate, and respectful. This album and its music reflect that same paradox, presuming something to be ominous, when in reality it is the inverse. For example, the concepts of the songs (Ammit I & II) are not as menacing as their descriptions seem to imply. Ammit is an Ancient Egyptian deity that is a manifestation of divine judgment, ferociously eliminating only the irredeemably immoral, to preserve ongoing prosperity and purity of the righteous. Consider this same reversal of expectation if attempting to decipher the narrative being expressed in “The Perfection Misguided."