Faux Pas

Entropy Begins at Home

(self-released)

US release date: 11 April 2006

UK release date: 1 November 2006

by Chris Catania

Entropy Begins at Home is like traveling around the world and eavesdropping on the globe’s myriad of musical cultures via an electronic wide angle lens and digitally eclectic earpiece. Beat mix maestro from Melbourne, Australia, Tim Shiel compiled his eight tracks and certainly has a knack for finding the beauty in contrast. The multi-genre journey follows a peaks and valleys rhythmic pattern, going from a subdued and serene silence to a climatic celebratory crash of cymbals and avant-garde jazz percussion, and in some spots effortlessly squeezing the soundtracks of four continents into one complete song. “For the Trees” rises above the chaos of the canopy with its chopped guitar funk laid over a breakbeat breeze of trumpets, bells, and the plethora of instruments Shiel has in the home studio where he runs his DIY record label. Faux Pas is Shiel’s second self-released offering that—like all good rides—comes to an end too quickly. Just when you’ve been seduced by the enchanting last wiggle of “Dorothy’s Finger”, the bliss fades away like distant space dust… you blink and you’re back home again.

Listen to “For the Trees”

— 22 February 2007

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