SHHE – ‘Thalassa’ Review

What does SHHE sound like?

Electronic experiments, this time turning the Mediterranean Sea into an ambient world.

The review of ‘THALASSA’ by SHHE

After creating some hypnotic alt-electronic bangers on their previous albums, SHHE was commissioned to record the Mediterranean Sea using hydrophones. This original plan didn’t come together as Alexandria’s heavily militarised coastline prevented sound recording both above and below the surface. Left feeling stuck on the outside looking in, SHHE created ‘THALASSA’ as an attempt to give the sea a voice.

The album is a six-part narrative built around SHHE’s breath and the idea of sinking, submergence, and eventually emergence. SHHE is Scottish-Portuguese, and in their hometown of Dundee, Scotland, parts of it are expected to be underwater in the coming decades. Dundee’s plight mirrors that of Alexandria in some ways, a city twice sunk and expected to be partially sunk again by 2050. With this context in mind, ‘THALASSA’ is like a sonic scuba dive.

‘Pneuma’ opens the album with a beautifully haunted soundscape of slow, deep breaths that give way to tonal vocal notes. They sound cavernous and never-ending. At times, the higher-pitched vocals remind me of the ringing in the ears you can get when pressure changes. The sounds are dramatic but left with space to echo. There’s a gothic enchantment about it that fans of dark folk music will enjoy. ‘Katávasi’ takes over seamlessly, introducing a pulsing kick drum, strange slow-motion synths, and an elegant chorus of SHHE’s vocals. The opening few minutes allude to a majesty and grandeur… like a shoal of fish that dance effortlessly. As the bass and more synthetic instruments creep in, the elegance grows in power, and the tone shifts towards a dangerous majesty. It’s still slow and plodding, but now each kick drum thumps in with a gulp rather than a flutter. It is a fantastic example of subtle tonal shifts creating a world of imagination.

By the time ‘Katávasi’ ends, we’ve hit a tense and sharp cut from gnarly bass into micro sounds with ‘Allásso’. Watery, icy bubbles fizz and crackle under sparks of vocalisation that cut in and out like a cry from another world. Lacking immediate melody, the track embodies the emotions of a cinematic last cry from a dying civilisation. The second half transitions into unsure, glitchy beats and synth hues, but the air of mystery never leaves. The taut, constricted density of submergence comes into full effect with ‘Emfánisi’. At seven and a half minutes, the track has several phases. Its opening introduces a downward trickle of synths over swooshing waves of distortion. Hypnotically, this cascades lure the listener into a numbing emergency before other thick, bulbous synths take over with a cyclic chord progression that builds tension and danger. ‘Emfánisi’ then loses its bulbous sound and becomes like sandpaper. Chords, keys, and voice are gargled razors as yet again SHHE balances beauty and danger with aplomb. This is a track that rewards patience.

Clocking in at close to eight minutes, ‘Peras’ is the most outwardly melodic track on the album. Evoking the endless depths of the sea, the track leans into modular synth trappings. Short melodic buzzsaws slowly twist their form through lots of knob twiddling and filter tricks. The first three minutes ramp up each synth engine before SHHE pitch bends different parts of the soundscape, like we’re experiencing either the bends or an escalation back up to the surface again. I love how the track shifts from small sizzles to bleeding metallic chasms via bleep bloops without changing its melody. ‘Peras’ shapeshifts every few seconds, making it a dynamic and expansive piece. With our dive back at the surface, ‘Peras’ ends with a huge gasp, before ‘Anodos’ brings us back full circle to the breathwork. There are moments in ‘Anodos’ that are almost entirely silent except for the last trickles of oxygen. Whilst the track mirrors the ideas of opener ‘Pneuma’, the sounds and vocalisations are clearer, more urgent, and carry stains of previous songs with them.

SHHE has created a clever narrative with ‘THALASSA’. The ambient soundscape is an inviting, unsettling metamorphosis. By subverting the obvious and using strange sound samples and synths to create a sonic dive into the unknown, it lets the listener layer their own interpretations on top. This is an album that I find endlessly fascinating, and I recommend playing it in the dark or with an underwater screensaver on. You’ll find the audio more immersive, but you may just have a metamorphosis of your own, too. Fabulous.

Recommended track: Emfánisi

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