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Music

SHAMS Gets Philosophical on New Track, "Simulations"

The Brooklyn-based artist is readying to close a long chapter in his life.
Photo by David Barron

"What's it like to wake up in the morning with nothing to think about?"

In his latest track, "Simulations," Brooklyn-based artist Jonathan Coward, a.k.a. SHAMS, gets philosophical, and perhaps that's not too surprising: with the release of his upcoming album, Romantic Choking, he's readying to walk away from his 11-year music career for the foreseeable future. The end of such a significant chapter in one's life prompts the question: What now?

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Part of this decision, Coward tells THUMP over email, stems from being consumed by his onstage persona as SHAMS, a character he describes as "narcissistic" and a "trainwreck." "[It] started to proceed me personally and socially. The blurring of this game accelerated to the point where at times I was unaware of the dark mirror I had fabricated and my actual self," he says. "It became increasingly taxing and emotionally draining to continue in this charade."

According to Coward, "Simulations" is both in title and in content an homage to late French philosopher Jean Baudrillard's 1981 treatise Simulacra and Simulation, which examines the relationships between symbols, reality, and society. The mind-bending text is mirrored in the track's complexities, its heavily-slurred vocals navigating a multi-layered soundbed of glitches, cranks, rave-y synths, and a rumbling bassline.

Listen to "Simulations" below and also check out a Q&A with SHAMS about his career, leaving music, and what's next. The full album is now available for download on Bandcamp.

THUMP: This album is one of your last releases before you step away from your SHAMS project and from making music in general. What led you to this decision?
SHAMS: I started SHAMS in 2006 in the wake of audience fatigue towards laptop musicians. I was growing weary of the static tableau of a performer lit from behind a laptop, which was an all too common sight in the experimental music community in which I was previously involved. Having grown up in the punk and hardcore scene of the mid-90s, energy and audience engagement were paramount to me when it came to a live music experience. With that said, how to present this project in a live setting and avoiding the laptop dynamic was very perplexing in the beginning.

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My first appearance as SHAMS was around 2006 in Brian Blomerth's basement, The Pom Hole, in Richmond Virginia. I wore a Rackmount dual tape deck on my body with the aid of a duct-taped guitar strap. I would stop the tape at pivotal moments of high audience energy and physically attack members of the crowd while the tape rewound, preparing the process to start anew. It was a mess, it was hilarious, people seemed to love it—however, it was clearly an unsustainable style.

I basically just needed something to do while the music was playing, so I began exploring a fairly novel concept and starting actually writing songs and singing, which I had never done before. I played the backing tracks off of an iPod, which was becoming a more acceptable means of performance thanks to acts like Juiceboxxx, Hawnay Troof and Peaches. I wanted the project to be duplicitous in its online presentation, hence the name SHAMS. For years all that I would make available online were instrumentals obscuring the full scope of the project. The tracks accessible online were sunny and uplifting, borrowing inspiration from deep and soulful house, while the live set was more inspired by Chicago house, EBM, industrial, and noise with the energy of a hardcore or screamo band.

I experimented a lot with audience reaction, falling on my own sword, and sinking my own ship—what I like to call "embarrassment transfer," which is when someone is putting themselves out there in such an unhinged and embarrassing way that you yourself feel embarrassed by having witnessed it. I enjoyed creating hyper-awkward situations, thus hermetically sealing off a space where no audience member could escape the trainwreck that was me with a microphone in my hand. This narcissistic persona that I had created as SHAMS started to proceed me personally and socially. The blurring of this game accelerated to the point where at times I was unaware of the dark mirror I had fabricated and my actual self. It became increasingly taxing and emotionally draining to continue in this charade. I don't plan to stop making music altogether, but I do plan on taking a break for awhile and never again working in this layered and personified sense. However, "Romantic Choking" wont be the last release as SHAMS. I am also doing another project with 100% SILK and releasing a huge backlog of unreleased material from 2013 to 2016.

Tell us about the creative process behind this album. What emotions if any did it conjure?
From the very beginning of SHAMS, I had always envisioned this record as an incredibly grandiose gesture. As I said before, all obtainable output from me was only half of a representation of the project as a whole. If you saw SHAMS live and enjoyed the set, returning home to search the web for material, you might have been sorely disappointed or even lead to believe that there are two SHAMS and you had found the wrong SHAMS. On the other hand, if you were only exposed to the material online and never saw a live set you might perceive SHAMS as a fairly unadventurous track factory. Either way you look at it, there was no "right" SHAMS… It was all wrong.

"Romantic Choking" was meant to be a great lifting of this deceitful veil that I had crafted. I began working on the record in 2010 and I wanted to take an extraordinary amount of time writing and recording the material so that it might stretch a large expanse of time and possess a wide spectrum of inspiration and sonic qualities. This ambitious framework ultimately betrayed me as the post-production phase stretched on endlessly for 3 years beginning in 2013. Tensions with record labels began to mount and I began to bounce around from label to label for a myriad of reasons, ultimately leaving them all and deciding to release it independently on Bandcamp (lol) cuz fuck it, who cares. I had become obsessed with the false validation that comes with labels, contracts, licensing, publishing, and Public Relations as if that made the record more "real". As far as emotions conjured by this record, I would sadly say anger, frustration, failure, loss, and contempt. As I talk to you today upon the release of the record all I feel is peace, satisfaction, and an unbridled excitement to share this heartbreakingly complex work.

What do you plan on doing post-SHAMS?
I have done a lot of contemplative sitting and asking some fairly difficult questions of myself regarding my motivations as a solo performer. I didn't like the answers and I am embarrassed to admit that far more of my ego was involved than I had ever intended in the beginning. I felt that in part, I became a caricature of the archetype I had been lampooning. Over the past few years art and music has lost importance and personal relevance at an alarming rate. I have spent countless years contorting and curtailing my life at the alter of music. Suffering in my day to day lifestyle to fuel this insane passion for something that I've began to despise and abhor. I felt as if I was standing on the edge of a cliff with nothing left… To lose my love for music was terrifying and completely unexpected.

Upon asking myself what made me happy without compromise or complaint, the only answer I had—and have always had—was Wilderness. I plan to make some pretty monumental life changes and forge a closer relationship to my heart's home, the mountains. I aspire to go deeper into mountaineering and pursue big wall rock climbing and alpinism, hopefully securing a position somewhere remote as an alpine guide. Once I become proficient enough to impart my knowledge to others I would possibly like to come back to city life and apply for grants and work with organizations like "Big City Mountaineers" to take metropolitan youth on trips to mountainous wilderness areas. But, with all that said… look out for my drum & bass shit, "pickles," lol.