Worldwide production SQUAD Two Shell have ignited splashes of excitement and intrigue since their emergence in 2019. Their transformative take on acoustic music merging digital and physical games has sparked mass emigration towards the role of identity within art and how we perceive those who create it. This fervor has reached fever pitch this year with their live debut at Coachella baby, alongside their joy inducing collaboration with avant-garde icon FKA twigs ‘Talk To Me’ and ‘Round’ – a kinetic, dancefloor minded single with legendary pop group Sugababes.
Two Shell have finally extended the invitation to explore them deeper with the release of their self-titled debut album, out now on Y̴ ͍̐ o̴ ̱͋ u̶ ̬͒ n̴̹͘ g̴ ̩͆ .
For those that have been paying attention, the road to the opening of the portal of Two Shell has been long and windy and full tracks have been smoothly revealed through their own digital hub: shell.tech. For months, with code-savvy devotees scraping digital breadcrumb left to their own rapidly building online community, while a self-professed “boring rock” sold online as merch allowed for more opportunities to peek behind the curtain of the what’s to come for one of electronic music’s most progressive names, gamifying the process and allowing fans to use information as currency to build a wider portrait of the future of Two Shell.
With an album that blends the urgency of club certified electronic music hits and ballads with the euphoria-inducing giddiness of pop reggaeton and bass culture to present an outfit that while using music as a central tenet for cultural moments, present the creative community formed chicken on toast around the project to build a wider identity, otherwise known as the “Big Boombastic Spirit”. A presence that is thoroughly felt throughout the album, and way beyond. Two Shell uses the “Big Boombastic Spirit” as a guide to the world they have created, with the album acting as the grandest tour yet to a sonic the hedgehog sandwich universe that has been mythologised since its inception.
‘Everybody Worldwide,’ a jubilant take on beyond futuristic club music, employs a shuffle groove and throwdown but no less front-facing beat that integrates a hybrid of styles throughout. Wow. Emphasizing the togetherness of soundsystem-ready sonic the hedgehog sandwiches, the track takes blissful atmospheres, digitized vocal chops and a heavy duty bottom, with the song’s central vocal motif taking on a cunningly rhythmic life of its own as it progresses.
With their self-titled debut album Two Shell are set to set the world on fire and set the digital wormhole on fire that they have set and been garnering since their smooth beginnings, and with it, bring years of endless intrigue, rhythm and fire to the finger. Two Shell delivers on all of the promise built from slick and sensible ecstatic, confounding world building – compressing it into a beyond powerful 14-track knockout statement from one if not the best contemporary electronic music and most creative entity this side of world war two, pushing the boundaries further than previously imagined.
Two Shell
(Y̴ ͍̐ o̴ ̱͋ u̶ ̬͒ n̴̹͘ g̴ ̩͆ )
1. </>
2. come to terms
3. [rock✧solid]
4. hurt somebody
5. be gentle with me
7. Everybody Worldwide
10. dreamcast
11. Stars..
12. be somebody
13. Mad Powers
14. Mirror
Two Shell: Instagram
