Review: Shinedoe – Freedom Riders

Amsterdam-based DJ and producer Shinedoe has released a 10-track epic that boldly travels through the classic techno sounds of synths, wavetables and confident, futuristic melodies.

Combining deeper house and minimal techno, Freedom Riders captures and evokes the feelings of “living in a world where there is peace, and all our basic needs are fulfilled,” Shinedoe explains.

“We are all Freedom Riders,” she says. “Some of us get lost and need to get back to the source.”

It opens with the self-titled track, a futuristic techno intro that weaves in and out of itself with otherworldly, sci-fi refrains ringing above a sonar-pulsing bassline. It’s tentative but curious, confident yet self-adapting.

Peace, as the name suggests, adopts a more meditative melody that dances softly in the distance over a low, droning hum. Safety First takes all the elements of a powerhouse techno thumper only to scale back the heart-punching basslines for a more reserved rhythmic drive, leaving the high-keyed instruments and sonic sirens to deftly rise and fall as if passing them in a spaceship.

Wake Up is relentless but minimal, an exploration of techno’s gritty toughness, softened round the edges by whispers, while Lockdown, aside from being everyone’s least favourite word, sounds a lot like how lockdown felt – a caged repetition of one solitary note, eventually driven out by echoes of other experiences only to return with a vengeance.

Album closer See The Light is a tidal struggle between hopeful house builds and darker, ominous reverbs – a perfect representation of the worlds explored, and the potential for returning to a world where we, or somehow it, is just that little bit better.

At least, with this release, our world is definitely better off now too.

Freedom Riders is available now.