Shadient peels back the layers to make way for earnest introspection on his latest creation, “Ego Insaniac,” a galvanizing single landing on Gud Vibrations.
The experimental bass producer from the UK offers up the moody, self-indulgent lead single from his debut album. Sharing “Ego Insaniac” after a difficult quarantine, Shadient (real name Morgan Hicks) calls this tune the most honest song he’s ever created.
The melancholic taste of the full album sits promptly in the middle of dark intensity and unrestraint. With “Ego Insaniac” and the soon-to-be-released debut album, Morgan is moving to occupy the transcendent space of an artist who meets the needs of satisfying EDM festival bass heads while also appealing to avid contemporary electronic music listeners and critics.
The sheer power and demand the track possesses in its brevity of just over two and a half minutes blends with the subtlety and restraint of it all. Morgan, London’s EDM wunderkind, creative modality is one of meticulous detail, crafting of specific aesthetics, and an invitation into his palpable world of dark internal reflection coupled with an eye for intellectual concerns much higher than music.
A haunting and visceral number, “Ego Insaniac” is brimming with unfettered emotion. His trademark fuzzy distortion is reinforced with industrial elements, as a cavernous drumbeat slowly digs its way into the deepest trenches of the subconscious.
The primal roar of its subtle downtempo glitches stretches out beneath a languid falsetto that effectively sears itself onto the brain. With his own vocal delivery sitting atop his unrivaled sound design, Shadient’s first foray on the mic somehow manages to feel at once new yet oddly familiar.
The strangeness of it all forces the listener to exist beside themselves, so long as they are willing to take the trip through the labyrinth of one of bass music’s most mysterious psyche.
“I’m so sincerely ecstatic to be giving ‘Ego Insaniac to the world,” says Shadient. “I think a lot of my album spreads its arms wide and boldly both musically and emotionally and this song is a great way to introduce the world to what I feel is truly the most honest music I’ve ever made. It took a lot in me to make music that felt so honest, so it felt perfect to first share a song that I sing on entirely by myself.”
Since first surfacing on NGHTMRE and SLANDER’s Gud Vibrations imprint in 2019, Shadient has made himself an almost permanent fixture on the catalog through a string of releasees showcasing his strength at turning the low-end scene onto its side.
The experimentation hit its peak on his most recent appearance, the ‘Infinite Structures’ EP, which served as the perfect precursor for the innovation that awaits on his forthcoming LP.
“Ego Insaniac” finds him tearing away at the safety net, stripping down his sense of self, and offering an intimate glimpse into the innerworkings of his ingenuity.
