ShiShi’s Blood Tape EP feels like a project built from a single, concentrated impulse — a need to capture something unsettling, intimate, and unresolved before it slips away. The release carries a mood that’s both inward-looking and sharply tuned, giving the sense of an artist shaping their own world with limited tools but precise intention. Nothing here feels ornamental; every choice seems to point back to the same core tension, the same undercurrent that holds the record together. It’s a brief, cohesive statement that turns private turmoil into contrast — airy melodies pulled against darker, heavier currents — making the whole project feel both confessional and quietly volatile.

The record opens with “Intro,” a slow-burning atmospheric piece that sets the tone with remarkable clarity. Layers of restless percussion circle around the core rhythm, creating a quiet sense of tension without revealing a clear destination. Cool, almost detached textures wrap themselves around a moody, echo-drenched piano line, while a cavernous low end rumbles underneath like something waking up below the surface. Nothing feels rushed or overstated — instead, the track builds its weight through accumulation, letting each element settle until the entire space feels charged, suspended, and ready for what follows.

And what follows is the eponymous track, “Blood Tape.” The main synth riff immediately recalls the brooding, precise energy of Gesaffelstein, but with its own distinct edge, as if something electric and slightly menacing is lingering in the air. The synths are epic and dark, weaving a tense, cinematic atmosphere that feels both expansive and claustrophobic at once. Vocals glide smoothly over the instrumentation, but there’s an unmistakable undercurrent of unease, a charged tension that keeps the listener alert, sensing that something might shift at any moment. The track balances elegance and threat, beauty and apprehension, establishing the mood for the rest of the EP.

Now danger has arrived. “Doomnight” unleashes a storm of intensity, with raging vocals that recall Depeche Mode at their darkest on Playing the Angel and Delta Machine, teetering between menace and catharsis. The synths roar like a pack of devils, dense and predatory, while the drums hit with unrelenting force.

“Rocket Ship to Hell” arrives in the eerie calm that follows the chaos of Doomnight, like a moment of uneasy reflection after the storm. The track is minimalistic, allowing delicate, evolving synth melodies to take center stage. Its slower pulse gives the piece a meditative, almost hypnotic quality, while the synths shift and morph as if they are alive.

The album closes with “Storm Clouds Gather,” a track that balances grandeur and intimacy in equal measure. The vocals, smooth yet expressive, carry a bluesy, soulful edge, threading seamlessly through epic, cosmic synths that recall the quietly powerful moments on Röyksopp’s The Inevitable End. The melodies are both expansive and immediate, with a vocal line that feels instantly familiar, as if it had always belonged in your memory. There’s a sense of culmination here, as if all the tension, energy, and darkness of the EP have coalesced into something reflective yet undeniably stirring — a fitting, resonant finale.

By the time Storm Clouds Gather draws the EP to a close, ShiShi has conjured a world both intimate and vast, where tension and serenity coexist without compromise. The music moves with a quiet authority, each note deliberate yet alive, as if tracing the fragile line between desire and restraint. There is elegance in its darkness, a sly, almost mischievous grace in its contrasts, and a rare honesty in the way it embraces both vulnerability and strength. This is a record that lingers not because it demands attention, but because it rewards it — a fleeting, vivid pulse of beauty and unrest, wholly its own.