REVIEW: Conna Haraway – Shifted

Ambient dub man-of-the-moment remembers techno: world gets wavier

27:23 // September 12th, 2025 // Short Span

It’s been a strong year for Glasgow’s ambient dub lynchpin, Conna Haraway: his two labels have been pumping out a steady stream of wavy goodness, and his March LP Spatial Fix was well-received for its aqueous soundscapes, glitchy crackle and tactile grooves. I enjoyed my time with that record, but its alternation between percussion-backed groovers and abstracted soundscapes left a slightly muted impression overall, as did its blend of textures: Haraway’s soupy palette lies somewhere adjacent to that of digital swamp architect Pontiac Streator, but with a far cleaner blend of tones and fewer points of distinction as such. Haraway’s work as a label boss is significant and exciting, but even if his output as a producer is competent, he’s yet to drop a proper eyebrow-raiser within the strain of ambient dub he has such a keen ear for.

Until now! His latest EP Shifted tops the speckled canvas of his 2023 debut Lusidiq as his most engaging release to date and its three tracks offer a diverse and encouraging range of possibilities for his sound (which here takes a clearer shape as his). It kicks off at its most diffuse with “Redirect”, an expansive collaboration with Xenia Reaper (whose album Gambling dropped on Haraway’s INDEX label earlier this year). As Haraway delicately builds supporting layers into Xenia Reaper’s central wash-out (including a deliciously murky low-end churn and flourishes of overscoring patter), the collaborative element proves evenly handed, if a little too frictionless to reward anything less than a dedicated headphone listen. If eleven sinuous minutes of liminal dub freefall are what it takes to evidence Conna Haraway and Xenia Reaper sitting in a room making music together, then we can all come away cheered.

However, and with all respect to Xenia Reaper, this EP’s highlight section comes with the following two tracks “Detach” and “Duration”, both of which see Haraway anchor his anti-gravity waviness in the bedrock of techno, using heavier beats to shift the momentum of his sound. The upshot isn’t necessarily more or less percussive than his past work – see Spatial Fix’s “Freon” for a particularly robust dubby beat – but that insistent, pulsing thud lends it a newfound sense of focus. “Detach” proves the more pliable and less uncompromising of the two: though its central pulse is unmistakably techno, this track sits in close proximity to the microhouse-infused sound we heard on Loidis’ contemporary landmark One Day last year. Its synth pulse is equal parts skank and shimmer, and both the palette and progression have a very microhouse feel to them. “Detach”’s peak emerges from a satisfying blend of rhythms as much as tones, and it ends up perhaps the most irresistibly danceable thing I’ve yet heard from Haraway.

Moreover, the following “Duration” dips into the same palette but offers a more linear techno counterpoint, thriving on subtle changes and eschewing a climactic structure in favour of a steady groove. This is admittedly more in line with my preferences for this sound, and the resulting progression is set less on reaching climactic heights than on digging into itself and extracting ample value from what proves to be a rich central idea. It proves a perfect complement to “Detach” in this regard, and the combined breadth and muscle of the pair can earn its keep on any curated dub techno playlist and cements Haraway’s place as a producer to watch. Whether he opts to double down on techno or to scale back the percussion, I’m excited to hear how the infectious qualities of these two excellent songs feed into his future output.

7.5/10

Further Listening:

i want to float i want crackle in my hair → Pontiac Streator – Triz
what is the Big Thing in this sound in this decade? → Purelink – Signs
no, the other one → Loidis – One Day
take me down to the paradise city → Basic Channel – Radiance