Shaki Tavi

A study in the push-pull between noise and pop, the Felte debut from Shaki Tavi continues Leon Manson’s sterling submersion into the depths of shoegaze. Not wholly enamored of just pop’s more obscured moments, there’s plenty of room on Minor Slip for shades of New Wave and post-punk, but it’s Manson’s penchant for balancing these genres with torrential waves of fuzz and glowing cocoons of foam that begin to bring the album to life. Strip away the sonics and Manson’s aloof baritone might land him more in line with Echo acolytes like RVG or Native Cats, but instead he fogs the room, letting the listener search for the hooks among the haze. Once located, tough, it’s clear that the aesthetic trappings aren’t there to hide any dearth of talent, hooking the listener with the pop undertones just as hard as he does with the paint-stripper pummel.

On Minor Slip, Shaki Tavi builds bridges between a few other generational gaps as well; smelting ‘90s styles with a mixture of rhythm and roar. Where the suspended gravity of “Trees” might hearken back to the haze of Ride, standout single “Breaker” ably staples the specter of the breakbeat ‘90s to the tumult. The song skips along on the snare-snap tattoo that enlisted a fleet of ‘90s trip-hop fans. He eyes the growl of heavier heads as well, building to towering heights on “Foam” with eyes towards Swervediver’s ’91-92 heaviness. That heaviness sets in midway through, stretching from “Foam” to “Peeler” before Manson spins off towards the infinite, slipping out of the cocoon almost entirely by the time he hits the pinwheel swirls of closer, “Tilted.” There are a lot of artists who’ve ingested the bulk of the shoegaze shimmer, but what sets Shaki Tavi apart is an ability to cherry pick the timeline and sew it all up into an album that feels like its absorbing and emanating the aura of a decade all at once.

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