- Shoeb Ahmad has put her hand to all sorts of sounds in all sorts of groups, like Agency, Spartak and Tangents. Given that weird, wonderful, loud and wild back catalogue, her full-length, solo debut, quiver was a bit of a surprise in its quiet, tentative, even bleak outlook. Detailing Shoeb’s journey to coming out as a trans woman and negotiating thorny issues not just of gender but of religion and race as well, was never going to be easy, in life or in music. While it was slow and hesitant, if you invested the time, you’d be surprised -again- to find a directness and optimism lurking in amid the musical layers and drifts of ambience.
For all that it was Shoeb’s very personal journey, these things are made easier when friends are there to help. On the original iteration of quiver she already enlisted the help of a score of folks and what worked once is given another go on the newly reworked quiver versions. Unlike most remix records, every single number from quiver is given to a different artist for reimagining and the results are presented in the original order.
The new versions are diverse and the quiet directness of the original is sometimes changed out in favour of thumping loudness. Brisbane’s Spirit Bunny slowly but surely establish this with their DIY electronics, post-rock conflagration and crashing drums, all of which which set fire to the reserved “lope.” Similarly immediate highlights include Hence Therefore’s bassy, fuzzy mid-tempo techno rework of “pinpointed” and Tilman Robinson’s transmutation of “status anxiety” into fractious bass rhythms and a melody of towering, icy ambience.
Some artists prefer to stick closer to the muted emotional colours of the original and, nonetheless, find new and worthy things to say. I was particuarly taken with Raven’s reinterpration of “low contrast” using muted piano, cello and glitchcore beats, dragging everything back nearly twenty years, into the indie-electronic sounds of Múm or Cloudead. I got a laugh out of Naif who was tasked with finding something to do with “mask-ed”. It used to be just about the most immediate, urgent and tuneful cut from quiver. As you may have guessed it becomes a near formless, disoriented fever-dream, like a badly remembered pop tune hummed under somebody’s breath.
Life’s journey is almost never easy, really, but it is made that much more so with the help of good friends. Here what was once a quite lonely experience, for Shoeb alone, becomes the experience of many: diverse, vibrant and going off in many directions. That’s what life should offer: the choice of many good journeys, with people you like. It is what quiver versions delivers.
- Chris Cobcroft.