Shaking Hand from Manchester invites the listener into a process of discovery and experimentation on their debut album released via Melodic Records, rather than presenting grand claims or “finished” brilliant ideas. Blending the city’s industrial post-punk heritage with krautrock discipline and math-rock precision, the band constructs an entire world with sound.
The Beauty of Unfinished Ideas: The album carries a sense of “construction in progress” in every note. Most tracks, instead of reaching a traditional climax, wander among skeletons and raw structures like a building site. The guitar-driven soundscape is full of contrasts: one moment pristinely melodic, the next angular and ferocious. This “unfinishedness” and the melodic lines that never quite peak are actually the band’s boldest artistic choice.
Ray Kappe and “People Movers”: Unexpectedly completing the album’s sonic universe is the cover artwork, drawn from the legendary modernist architect Ray Kappe’s never-realized “People Movers” transportation plan designed for Los Angeles in the 1970s. Just like Kappe’s elevated paths suspended in air with no tracks ever laid, Shaking Hand’s melodies remain hanging in mid-air, taking the listener on a stroll through the asynchronous roads of an imaginary city.
A Rhythmic Labyrinth: Tracks like “Wait For It” or “Slowly, Then Fast” showcase the band’s rhythmic intelligence and improvisational skill. Merging Manchester’s gray, industrial atmosphere with Los Angeles’s sunny yet half-finished utopias, the group transforms an abstract landscape into a debut album that lingers long in the mind through sheer instrumental mastery.
Apartment No:26 Note:
Shaking Hand connects Manchester’s concrete buildings to the transport rails of an imagined future; the spaces between sounds are as crucial as the negative space in Ray Kappe’s drawings.
There is a depth in their music that recalls Slint’s quiet/loud dynamics and Stereolab’s distinctive retro-futuristic aesthetic.
The futuristic rails on the cover are the perfect visual counterpart to the album’s non-linear, “perpetually in-the-making” structure.
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