Shifting Gears’s recent release, Drum Nation, is house with an interesting spin. The Japanese artist, who is based in Tokyo, is also known as Hoshina Anniversary. 

The first track on the album, the title track, takes traditional house rhythms and gives them an analog sound. This is whether with regards to the drums, the piano riff paired with the drums, or the electronic melody. Altogether, the composition is minimal in orientation, though it has some jazziness infused into it

As the name implies, the second track, “Average Hoshina Sound,” seems to be the artist self-reflexively trying to sum up their own sound. The track is more dense than “Drum Nation”, with overlapping layers introduced from the onset. Instead of building in sophistication as time goes on, the track deconstructs into its constituent elements as it goes on, with each layer isolated to give listeners a sense of what holds the track together. 

The two tracks prove inversions of each other, in some way, with the first track adding layers as it goes on, and the second taking them apart. Overall, with use of an analog sound for both tracks, this gives the album a warm texture, and sets it apart from other house albums. 

You can preorder Shifting Gears’s second EP exclusively on Traxsource here: