Matt Shea is relieved.
Tim Shiel has spent most of the last two years roaming the world sharing drinks carts with Gotye, as Wally De Backer’s “Making Mirrors” went viral, international, number one and everything else. So when producer and multi-instrumentalist Shiel returned to his Faux Pas project late last year with a series of winning remixes only to then announce he was then wrapping it up (releasing all the music online for free. For FREE!), there was a certain sinking feeling.
It turns out we needn’t have worried. Shiel is back with a record that is lacking only the Faux Pas moniker (Even Aldous Massie’s striking artwork is intact). But it adds something too. Shiel has teamed up with Melbourne indie programmers Kumobius to release Duet. A minimalist iOS game, Duet might be the most addictive thumb-tapper you’ll pick up all year, the player having to navigate his or her way through an increasingly frenzied cascade of obstacles.
But it’s powered by Shiel’s tunes, which have now been released as a soundtrack. Duet would be a fine little computer game either way, but with the music it becomes an eerie play on the imagination, where your mind builds images that far outstrip what the eye could ever take in.
Perhaps it’s Shiel’s skill with a theme. The Duet OST builds slowly, its arrangements shifting, swelling with walls of synthesisers and occasionally struck through with rays of acoustic relief. The music pops and pings with imaginative percussion, encouraging head nods, then zone-outs. But a small clutch of progressions is always in the background, threading a through line for the listener.
It’s a sound that’s both nostalgic and futuristic. Thoughtful electronic music, but with propulsion and heart. You want to hear this.
