The new album from acclaimed British producer Sam Shepherd, Cascade, is a continuation of sorts. In late 2022, the composer - renowned for drifting between genres as freely as his stage name, Floating Points, implies - found himself in the Californian desert working on something new. Mere Mortals, his first ballet score, created with the San Francisco Ballet, was to be a collision of sound and dance exploring the ancient parable of Pandora through the prism of technology. "It was one of quite a few left turns I was taking around that time," recalls Shepherd, who can say that again: Promises, his multiple end-of-year-list-topping previous record, released in 2021, had seen him swap his typical modular synth tapestries and intricate drum patterns for airy dreamscapes, crafted with late legendary saxophonist Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra. It was a collaboration so popular, a Mercury Prize nomination and sold-out show at the Hollywood Bowl in September 2023 followed. Between these projects and an upcoming anime score for Adult Swim, from the outside it might have seemed as though Shepherd was departing the dance floor for good. But as he wrote his ballet score by day, at night he found himself longing for the sweaty communion of the club; for the pulse-racing abandon of electronic music once more.
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