SHOEBOX: FALLING IN THE RIGHT PLACE

Back in 2011, a mysterious, hand-stamped 12” single emerged from the Netherlands with few clues as to the producers behind it. Since then, two more similarly styled vinyl EPs have followed, with a third due to hit stores imminently.

Now, ahead of that release, Shoebox have decided to finally unmask themselves via a digital-only album showcasing the best of their work to date – and a track or two from their forthcoming EP.

When they started the project at the turn of the decade, Amsterdam friends Tom Trago and Maxi Mill decided on anonymity in order to allow the tracks they made to be judged purely on musical merit. Now the series is established they’ve rightly stepped forward to take credit.

“Falling Into The Right Place” deftly showcases the depth and variety of the duo’s tracks as Shoebox, confidently moving between sample-heavy deep house blues (“I Got A Feeling”), heady ambient excursions (“Sagittarius Rhymes With Aquarius”, “The Number of Good Givingness”), tactile and jazzy dancefloor dreaminess (“Room No More”), defiantly intergalactic club cuts (“The World of Aquarius”, “Blue Heat”), harp-laden, bass-heavy house bliss (“Other Way Round”), and heavily edited, hard-to-pigeonhole brilliance (closing cut “Tronada”).

In turns hazy, colourful, intoxicating and out-of-this world, “Falling in The Right Place” is a fitting full stop to the first chapter of the Shoebox story.