Kiwi Drum 'N' Bass Veterans Shapeshifter Are Slaves To The Music

Perennials of the New Zealand music scene, Shapeshifter are back with their sixth album, Stars, and the live drum 'n' bass collective have never sounded so relevant.

"As we get older, our music tastes change a little bit. We also like to challenge ourselves a bit and almost reinvent ourselves a little bit each album."

The lead single from their latest record is the title track - which could be a Rudimental, or Tinie Tempah, EDM banger. But Shapeshifter's Nick Robinson - on bass, synths and MPC - maintains that any crossover appeal was pure accident. "It's funny - when we talk about singles, we don't really think about that when we're doing albums," Robinson says from his Christchurch base. "I guess it is quite catchy and sort of poppy, but we didn't set out to do that. When we get in the studio, we like to really not pay too much attention to what people might wanna hear and just get in there and have fun and enjoy ourselves - and then what comes out, just comes out."

Shapeshifter was formed by a core of jazz students in Christchurch in 1999. They were making hybridised dance music before it became a dominant trend - blending drum'n'bass with soul, funk, electro and rock. Shapeshifter's debut, Realtime, surfaced on Kog Transmissions in 2001. Two years on, they found a frontman in (the media-shy) Paora "P Digsss" Apera. Shapeshifter forged a strong following in Europe over consecutive tours, even appearing at Glastonbury. At home, they performed with orchestras, culminating in an epic live album. Shapeshifter's 2009 outing The System Is A Vampire was picked up by London's prestigious Hospital Records. Over time, Shapeshifter has accommodated personnel changes - most recently with the departure of keyboardist/saxophonist Devin Abrams, who's now in academia.

Stars is Shapeshifter's first album since 2013's Delta. Between records, they collaborated with old producer pal Opiuo, a Kiwi expat in Melbourne, on the "glitch-sounding" Slug A Bug EP. Stars, too, has been influenced by the wider electronic culture - Robinson moonlighting as a DJ. "We're lovers of electronic music and lovers of drum'n'bass and we also love old keyboards and synthesisers and just that sort of thing," he says. "So on this record, we actually experimented quite a lot with old synthesisers and keyboards and really had fun with that." The five-piece are conscious of staying fresh. "As we get older, our music tastes change a little bit. We also like to challenge ourselves a bit and almost reinvent ourselves a little bit each album."

This month Shapeshifter will fulfil a mini-tour of NZ. But, ahead of a full Australian run in 2017, the festival faves will be playing an exclusive slot at December's Subsonic Music Festival in NSW. Shapeshifter is billed alongside a surprising number of old-timers - among them dub legends Lee "Scratch" Perry and Mad Professor, plus DJs Josh Wink, Goldie and Wookie. Will Robinson be checking anyone out? "Oh, yeah, definitely," he enthuses. "All those names - not that I'm saying that I'm that old [laughs], but that's right from the era [when] we started... We'll be partying, for sure."