Ship Sket

(This article’s English version was produced with AI-assisted translation)

Josh Griffiths, aka Ship Sket, is a 26-year-old English producer who, after moving to Manchester, found the right environment to give shape to his visions. “Initiatrix”, his debut on Planet Mu, grows out of an instinctive process made of attempts, mistakes and constant reshaping, as if each track were summoned rather than built. Technique stays in the background; what comes forward is a restless mix of pounding drill and warped dub. Sonic dirt? Yes, a lot of it—maybe even too much. Expressionist flow? Definitely, if you imagine it as a techno-demonic creature of the new millennium.

What surfaces is a blend of bewitched textures and distorted fragments, a cauldron of sound that sometimes locks into place and other times falls apart. His creative drive is clear, with an above-average potential, but the sound design is wild and doesn’t always serve the material. It’s haunted UK bass (“Permanent Kigurumi”), shaped as if generated by a half-synthetic organism that breaks into a thousand electrically twitching branches (“Casting Call”). Looped strings rise through muddy glitch layers, evoking a troubling, ghost-like presence. And when “Mimikyu” arrives, with its martial collage of voices and percussion, the album feels as if it steps into another layer of reality.

Still, as a whole, the visionary map of “Initiatrix” intrigues without always finding a sharp focus. Rather than a finished statement, it feels like an introductory ritual that tends to dissolve into itself. Ship Sket’s next step could be the decisive one, when the instinct behind his post-deconstructed approach settles into a clearer and more revealing form. For now, “Initiatrix” remains a cauldron of ideas that still need to fully solidify.

12/12/2025