The shell city degens are back. Two Shell’s latest serious single, ‘The Nightmare’, is a sincere return to form, revelling in the silliness of discovering how to use, then abuse, vocal stems on your mate’s DDJ-400. Since breaking out in 2022 with their breakout single ‘Home’ and ensuing EP Icons, there have existed two Two Shells.

The first shell exists only within the realm of the duo(?)s live sets which bear splendent new material every month like clockwork, including their giddiest bootleg edits destined to remain in copyright purgatory. The other shell, responsible for Two Shell’s more formalised releases (IIcons, Two Shell etc), has paradoxically been a little unfocussed relative to its companion shell. Perhaps the strictures of the album format compel Two Shell to get just a little too unserious.

This new track sits in the middle of those two shells, leaning hard into the silliness without losing itself. Nightcore vocals beckon you toward the center of the floor, surrounded by a chorus of feral howls. A juttering organ line pulses like a 500cc Mario Kart OST, echoed by a signature over-compressed arpeggio, while an impressively indistinct Top 40 vocal chants uplifting, incongruous dancefloor slogans. “This is the nightmare”? It sounds like MDMA and strobes! Nothing to fear. The track ultimately collapses into a breakbeat outro that sounds like a floppy drive frying itself alive. While it’s lacking the texturally raw yet hyper-processed sound that you can find on the duo’s unimpeachable EP Icons, I promise ‘The Nightmare’ is similarly fast, dumb, and most of all, fun.

If it feels like we are indeed living through a nightmare, or something even more bleak than that, Two Shell’s latest production doesn’t sound like it. At a time when most of what we are confronted with is rot or artifice, perhaps the most sincere thing we have left is a flippant “Let’s go!” on the floor. ‘The Nightmare’ recognises this and sashays on its merry way, sans interruption, and suddenly Two Shell seem more human than ever before.

85

Edison Nguyen

1 February 2025