Audiopile Review: Stunner debut album of richly textured ambient and murky shoegaze aesthetics from mystery producer chantssss. Tickling a similar sensory palette as this year’s release from Naemi, chantssss certainly sounds like they may be connected to the now storied 3XL/West Mineral extended universe, and with a vocal appearance by Ben Bondy (here listed under his k2DJ moniker), the connection may be more direct than we know. Starting in a placid zone of shimmering ethereality with the echoed vocals and glacial ambience of “If U”, chantssss moves on to the Grouper-like dream-pop of “Lia”, before settling on the restless post-club atmosphere of “(Swan)” and “Yr Lyf”, swathing every shift on the album bathed in a 4AD-like glow. Ben Bondy’s appearance on “Jus Woke Up” is an album highlight, his drifting, slightly auto-tuned vocals are smeared across sub-heavy washes and skittery post-dubstep beatwork, perhaps coming somewhere near early Burial. Shyness should be investigated post-haste by fans of the new netherworld currently being excavated from the depths of contemporary ambient.

Labels Theory Therapy and co:clear come together to release the debut album by Italy-based artist CHANTSSSS.

‘Shyness’ suggests something subtle, intricate and ethereal – but it also demands your attention. Over 10 tracks of spacious, sub-aquatic ambience, CHANTSSSS pulls you deep into his vaporous sound world. The songs themselves, a blend of ambient pop, chamber music and pulsing low end rhythms, feel cloaked in mystery. Layers of reverb and zonked vocals float in the atmosphere, moving between and through one another, mist on mist. It’s not necessarily a quiet record, the low end can shake a room if you turn the volume up, but it does feel extremely intimate – proof that some art speaks loudest in its quietest moments.

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