On Su Shaw’s self-titled debut as SHHE, the sea seemed to flood into her songwriting unbidden, imagined as it was by the water at her home in Dundee. When Shaw moved on to the ambient suite of DÝRA, set around the fjords in Iceland, she welcomed the water in.
At the same time, Shaw picked up a somewhat nomadic existence as an artist, moving from place to place, capturing field recordings and establishing environmental installations that flowed with the very currents and tides of the water itself, finally ending up in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, where THALASSA took shape.
Its six movements chart an ambient seascape that is heightened and alarmed. Processed voices mimic breathless gasps and sharp intakes,…