Bleep

After spending some years living in the club-hub of Berlin, producer and DJ Ryan James Ford came to realise that the sound of his frenetic dancefloor melee was less a result of the bustling metropolis and more a product of its exact opposite. Named Exshaw after an Alberta mountain hamlet near his native Calgary — and more specifically, the surrounding wilderness of the Canadian forests that engulf the landscape — crafting the record has allowed Ford to reorient his electronic dance music with a wide-lens scope, folding bodily movements into a close brush with the transcendent realm.

Across Exshaw, it’s easier to imagine shadowy woodland raves than sweaty warehouse throngs. The hardcore rattle of ‘2 SEEBE EXIT 2’ is a furious banger by itself, but its contrast with the cinematic intonations of break beat manglers like ‘KAKI PROMETHAZINE MIX’ and ‘HONEY HOLE 4TH CUT’ gives Exshaw its complex character, knotted with moments of striking euphoria and the slightly eerie atmosphere of losing yourself among the trees. ‘AVANT GUAZE’ capitalises on the mood, bleeding strange, orgiastic vocal snippets into its inexplicably catchy electro hook.

Ultimately, Ford traces out the unexpected interstices of two worlds and nestles in the valley in-between; teeming masses of dancers on one side, and the awe-inspiring natural world on the other.