Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Shockone, Warner Music Australia 2019.
Shockone is the performance name of Perth based electronic producer Karl Thomas and A Dark machine is the first taste of his work that I’ve experienced.
Thomas has produced a powerful concept album that begins from the perspective of someone waking in the night to find themselves running down a darkened street not knowing where they are or what they’re running from.
The only thing they know is that they have to keep running.
Over 13 tracks Shockone builds a disorienting dystopia that confronts the darkness within our own subconsciousness.
The album is like an 80’s sci-fi movie soundtrack from films like Blade Runner.
A Dark Machine features the vocal skills of Thomas’s sister, Reija Lee, along with Cecil, Cruz Patterson and the additional production inputs of Ekko and Sidetrack.
The album actually began with the writing of the title track and first single, A Dark Machine.
The recording of that track led to the realisation that the world Thomas was building was bigger than just one song.
Over a two-year period and two more singles, 2018’s Bleed Black and Underloved, Thomas’s vision began to crystalise.
The world of sound that emerged is metallic and industrial, punctuated with factory klaxons and deep rumblings.
It’s an unnerving and disorienting environment.
The album opens with Awake and our protagonist is sucked violently out of a dream while Run (featuring The Bloody Beetroots) finds him frantically running from the unknown.
And so he is propelled on a journey of self-discovery through Black Blood (featuring Cruz Patterson) where he dabbles with self-destruction onward deeper into the bowls of the Dark Machine and eventually to a place of uneasy acceptance.
In many ways Shockone is venturing into territory first covered by Alan Parsons with his series of futuristic concept albums from the 80s such as I Robot.
The music is different but the landscape is similar.
