The transition from DJ to album artist is a tricky one. While one art is about reading the room, the other is a more isolated and intimate experience. For Bristolian Shanti Celeste, on her debut full-length Tangerine, it’s an opportunity to show subtlety and depths that she doesn’t often have space to explore on the dancefloor.
Celeste channels the style of early house and techno pioneers, via the influence of her beloved Bristol scene (she started out working at local record shop Idle Hands, and ran a label called BRSTL). Her previous releases have been lithe, dancefloor-ready EPs, including a collaboration with fellow Bristolian techno producer Hodge, earlier this year.
Tangerine is her first artistic statement proper, with instruments she has never used before including her own vocals and a kalimba recorded at her father’s house in Chile. It’s an enveloping listen. At times it sounds like something that wouldn’t be out of place in a yoga or meditation class – particularly on the dazzling Slow Wave, a beatless sigh of ambient, minimalist melodies. But this is an album informed by the club: the panicky percussion and bubble-light synths of Aqua Block, the elastic bassline of Sesame, and the chaotic house thump of Infinitas are all primed for a 2am workout. Yet Tangerine is equally an album you may want to stick on when you get home at the end of the night, full of nuance, space and soft textures to help you float away.
