Floating Points
Cascade
Release Date: Sep 13, 2024
Genre(s): Electronic, House, Techno, Pop/Rock, Club/Dance, Left-Field House
Record label: Ninja Tune
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Album Review: Cascade by Floating Points
Very Good, Based on 8 Critics
Based on rating 4.5
A set of bangers rich in colour and content, full to bursting with incident and energy, Sam Shepherd has made something rather special With the release of Cascade, Sam Shepherd is looking to complete some unfinished business. His last solo album as Floating Points, the 2019 epic Crush, was robbed by lockdown of its evident potential to carve up a dancefloor. Frustrated at its lack of live exposure, Shepherd resolved to make a follow-up capable of transporting both him and his audience into a seething mass of euphoria.
Based on rating 8/10
It's a question only a select few artists ever have non-delusional reasons to wrestle with. Sam Shepherd (aka the producer, multi-instrumentalist and composer trading as Floating Points) has had valid grounds for pondering this dilemma recently. Promises, Shepherd's deservedly lauded 2021 collaboration with the late master of spiritual jazz, saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, amplified the ethos of blissful ambient drifts, jazz-influenced explorations and cyclical meditativeness of 2015's debut LP Elaenia to create a minimalist masterpiece of seriously beautiful, hushed contemplation, painted on the widest possible canvas with help from the London Symphony Orchestra.
Based on rating 8/10
In 2014, Sam Shepherd wrote a career-defining tune in a matter of minutes. “Nuits Sonores” was finished on a flight to the Lyon festival of the same name, and it sounds as effortless as it apparently was, climbing towards the heavens without boiling over into excess. This is one of Shepherd’s two main modes—when he’s not a jazz auteur, he’s a crack house and techno producer.
Based on rating 8/10
Floating Points' Sam Shepherd earned an enormous amount of attention and praise for Promises, his revelatory collaboration with Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra. The album's patient, slowly billowing soundscapes were far removed from his previous full-length, Crush, an often-playful set of experimental techno tracks and ambient pieces. He had wanted to explore the album's danceable side during live performances, but the COVID-19 pandemic curtailed those plans.
Based on rating 1/10
There are few things Sam Shepherd isn’t good at. The British producer, known as Floating Points, holds a PhD in neuroscience and has released critically acclaimed albums over his nearly 20-year career. He’s traversed the boundary between classical and jazz while establishing himself as a formidable force in electronic music. His collaboration with the late great avant-garde saxophonist Pharoah Sanders earned him even higher status.
Opinion: Excellent
It's worth remembering that when the name Floating Points first appeared on our radar, it was via a series of rugged, club-focussed 12s . Since then, obviously, his approach has broadened - his epic, jazz-fuelled Ensemble performances for examples, or aligning with Pharoah Sanders (and the London Symphony Orchestra) for the sublime 'Promises'. On 'Cascade' however he goes back to the source - an autobiographical paean to club culture, it acts as a window of insight into his electronic imagination, while also slapping hard.
Opinion: Excellent
Floating Points often induces a 'madeleine moment' for me, transporting me back to a dimly lit, subterranean room on Curtain Road in Shoreditch where music was the binder that fizzed between you and strangers. Strangers that became your friends by the end of the night - minimal words needed. The now long-gone Plastic People was where Floating Points spun alongside Four Tet and Theo Parrish.
Opinion: Very Good
After years composing in the jazz cosmos, Sam Shepherd takes a left turn with a bumper pack of unapologetic club bangers. Share When the glasses come off, you know Sam Shepherd is getting serious. An hour and a half into his recent Boiler Room set in New York, with a rapt crowd behind him, the producer whipped off his signature round specs. Then, you can tell he's sinking deep into the zone. As he masterfully turned up the heat during his marathon five-hour set, he broke into a huge grin. It might not be the image of Shepherd you know best—that of a gearhead polymath who's got a PhD in neuroscience and composes with jazz legends—but instead, the DJ who wants people to dance until they sweat, and then keep going. .
'Cascade'
is available now