SHHE imagines the Mediterranean Sea through modular synthesis on THALASSA

SHHE releases THALASSA on 15 May via One Little Independent Records, a six-part ambient collection from Scottish-Portuguese sound artist and producer Su Shaw. Named after the Greek primordial sea goddess, the album follows SHHE’s 2024 project DÝRA and focuses on the Mediterranean Sea at a point of ecological, political and existential crisis.

The project has a striking origin. Shaw spent time in Alexandria, Egypt, as a musician in residence through a British Council-supported project, originally intending to record the Mediterranean using hydrophones. Military presence on the Alexandria coastline prevented direct sound recording, so THALASSA was built instead from a custom modular synthesizer designed by SHHE and developed with electronic producer Ben Chatwin.

That limitation becomes the album’s artistic core. Rather than capturing the sea literally, Shaw imagines it through synthetic pressure, absence and memory. Tracks including Pneuma, Katávasi, Allásso, Emfánisi, Peras and Anodos suggest a cycle of descent, change and emergence. For a 15 May digest, THALASSA is a beautiful left-field item: ambient music shaped by water, crisis, place and the impossibility of recording what cannot be safely reached. Source: https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/news/shhe-new-album-thalassa