Having already turned heads with his earliest releases, Floating Points’ career arc has seen him stride from strength to strength, mapping the territories between lush, rolling club bangers, beautifully orchestrated ensemble pieces, modular synth workouts and much more. His innate talent, open mind and technical rigor have coalesced into one of the most significant bodies of electronic work in the last 20 years. Let’s have a look back at some of his landmark tracks.
Vacuum Boogie
Released when he was only 23 years old, Vacuum Boogie was one of the first Floating Points EPs, and it’s about as strong a release as a young artist could ask for. The three track’er came out in 2009, putting it right ahead of the dusky, lo-fi house movement that would emerge only a few years later. Compared to the producers who followed in his footsteps, however, Floating Points isn’t really lo-fi. True, there’s a semi-smeared aura to the records and an emphasis on swung, laid back grooves that skip the punchy perfection of tech house for something more mercurial. But these tracks are a cut above. Shepherd seems to happily be standing on the shoulders of Theo Parrish, whose work at that time feels like a direct spiritual predecessor. Shepherd fuses the impossible depth of Parrish’s Detroit avant-house with the bouncy sensuality of French artists like Pepe Braddock, whose 1999 classic “Deep Burnt” feels like the one track Floating Points wishes he had written, and even a little Laurent Garnier. If he had stopped here, the record would have remained a cult favorite amongst diggers. Instead, he was just getting started.
Nuits Sonnores
A true classic in a discography overloaded with them, “Nuit Sonnores” showcases the casual jazzy virtuosity that has defined Floating Points’ oeuvre. Kicking off with a beat so understated it sounds like it’s in the next room, the track builds with immaculate elegance over 11+ minutes. "Nuit" shifts focus between airy melodic fragments, soulful Rhodes vamps, a gentle but insistent acid line, sideways solos and more. You can feel that the parameters of house music are bending and buckling under the force of his irrepressible imagination, but Shepherd doesn’t chafe under the confines of the dance 12”. He’s able to stretch the structure, making proper house music in good faith while looking far beyond the form. It’s a track that feels both wholly complete and also in conversation with influences that range across the spectrum. You gotta hear it.
Falaise
“Falaise,” the opening track to his 2019 album Crush, announces itself with breathtaking power. Shepherd ditches the dancefloor for sumptuous chamber orchestration that, frankly, makes a case for him as a modern classical composer. A bristling flute draws out a single note, evoking the Japanese classical court music called Gagaku, before a flurry of players come in to articulate chords of heartstopping beauty. The full list, laid out in this RA Art of Production interview, is “two violins, viola, cello, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet and French horn,” building around an idea ”to treat acoustic instruments like oscillators from a synth.” These are then run through his trusty Buchla modular, chopping up the ensemble in a conceptual Möbius strip. If each instrument is meant to replace a synth oscillator, bringing Shepherd’s pianistic writing into the “real” world, the stuttering overlay of the Buchla returns that sound back to the world of circuits. It’s an ingenious move that connects the dots of his most prominent touchstones with an expansiveness that elevates all component parts.
Oh and did we mention he also wrote and recorded the whole album in five weeks?
Promises
In retrospect, if anyone could have done it, it’s him. But when it was announced that Floating Points was collaborating with Pharoah Sanders - free jazz legend, revered bandleader, key collaborator to both John & Alice Coltrane - and the London Symphony Orchestra, skepticism abounded. Sanders was a titan in his field, nearing the end of his life, and Shepherd, for all his credentials, was, you know, that fancy house producer.
It would be hard to say Promises is anything less than a triumph. Sanders’ most beloved LPs feature long-form works that often unspool through a mixture of bucolic beauty and urgent, frenetic power. His tone alone, full bodied and impassioned, can carry any theme. On Promises, he lays it down in timeless style above a bed of intricate, spacious harmonies that bloom and glint like the first light of dawn peeking over the horizon. It’s a masterpiece of modern, spiritual jazz, right up there with Nala Sinephro’s recent albums and the Kamasi Washington.
Birth4000 (Extended)
After a few years scratching the jazz itch, Floating Points is back in the saddle. “Birth4000 (Extended)” is a riotous slice of modular-heavy disco house. Kicking off with a swirl of chaotic synth squiggles, it soon finds its footing in a bassline that seems to be a deliberate callback to “I Feel Love.” Winding, cosmic leads float atop with an unhurried, jammy pace, and the drums take a cool 2:50 to even start to enter the mix. Floating Points isn’t exactly a “drop-y” producer, but he doesn't shy from a dramatic moment, and when “Birth4000” finally kicks in, you can almost feel him smirk with “you see what I just did there?” delight. This is the sound of a master at work with nothing to prove, just enjoying the simple pleasures of a rowdy, italo tinged groove and his perfectly patched synthesizers.