After a five-year hiatus, Shlohmo returned with Repulsor, a record that’s equal parts introspection and sonic evolution. The Los Angeles-based producer and visual artist spent his break quietly reflecting, navigating life and the post-Covid era, and letting his sound mature on its own terms. The new album leans heavily into guitar, shoegaze textures, and wall-of-sound atmospheres, deliberately embracing imperfection and “wrongness” in a way that makes every distorted note feel intentional. “I’ve always approached music from a visual standpoint. I see it like painting with sound, world-building from the bottom up,” Shlohmo tells METAL in this worth-the-read interview about beauty, decay, and art.
How have things been for you recently?
Things are pretty chill right now. I’m just practicing for more live shows. A lot of the work was setting up the live show, and now I can just practice.
I was wondering, you stopped putting music out after 2019. Why now? How was the process of returning?
I didn’t intend for the gap in releases to be so long. Just life stuff kept happening, people close to me, family, friends, illness, and I wasn’t able to focus on the music or anything surrounding a release. Once it was out, I wanted to tour or create visuals, but I couldn’t. Honestly, it was good because I took in more life and made the songs better.
During those years, how did that shape your new sound? How is it different from the 2019 album?
It’s about what sounds sick to me at the time. The intent behind the music is always the same, but sonics change. My opinions on certain sounds evolve, and I learn. I started as a visual artist, thinking I’d be a printmaker or painter, and music came as a hobby. I approach it like painting with sound, building worlds rather than just songs. The new album is more guitar and vocal heavy, but the intention of creating an immersive otherworldly experience remains.
And as for performance, how’s it been returning to live shows?
The new album is easier to perform because it’s guitar and vocal-centric. I’m not trying to engage the audience too much, just doing what I want to do. When you stop creating for others and stop seeking validation, it feels freeing. Misfortune over the past years helped me reach that mindset.
Let’s talk about Chore Boy. Why lead with this song? How did the collaboration with Salem come about? And what about the video?
I met Jack [Donoghue] and John [Holland] from Salem in 2017 or 2018 through a mutual friend. We started working on their album Fires In Heaven (2020). That relationship led to playing shows and recording together. Chore Boy was originally an instrumental I made for myself. John offered to sing, and it just happened naturally, one take for the recording. The song fit perfectly into the album’s nebulous throughline.
The video had a very Tangerine feel. Can you talk about that?
Yes! That movie was a big inspiration. It was filmed in my neighbourhood, the corner I drove by every day to school. The song itself is about relationships and addiction, and the video’s visual style mirrors that dichotomy of Hollywood glamor versus street-level reality.
Tell me about Angelyne and her role in the video.
She’s an LA micro-celebrity, iconic in her own mysterious way, mostly known for giant billboards in the 80s and 90s. She represents glamour, but in the streets, she’s grounded, driving pink Corvettes, living in this strange dichotomy of LA life. That contrast was essential to the video’s visual language.
What are the themes running across the album?
It’s about navigating a dying world, observing decay. The sounds I’m drawn to highlight imperfection, wabi-sabi moments, things that feel wrong but beautiful. Technology and cultural context shift over time, and what’s “wrong” evolves, becoming nostalgic. Tape warbles, scratched CDs, even digital audio mistakes, they’re embraced, forming the texture of the music.
So, finding beauty in imperfection?
Exactly. That’s core to how I approach music, performance, and the album as a visual and sonic world.
If the album were a city or environment, what would it look like?
The cover and inspiration came from a photograph I found in Amsterdam, a swan making a nest out of trash in a canal, tending to its eggs as if nothing’s wrong, with a 7-Eleven cup and cigarettes nearby. It’s persevering through shit, beautiful and emblematic of resilience, like Angelyne in the video.
I remember you mentioned a 7-Eleven as a symbolic location?
Yes, it’s the source of evil, the hellmouth. LA 7-Elevens are often in strip malls, they become a focal point where everything unravels. We wanted a fantastical, Guillermo del Toro-like approach, blending that darkness with street-level life.
Another question, if your album was a colour, which would it be, and if it was a food, which would it be?
I think it would be a shade of black, but not really dark, like, as light as it can get, still being black but as light as possible, like it’s been scanned a million times.
And the food?
I was just in Germany, and I saw this apéritif, clear liqueur with a disc of pâté on top and a little squeeze of mustard. That would be it. It looked so sickening, but I love it. I have a picture, and every now and then I scroll by it.
Horrific, but still food?
Yeah, someone likes it somewhere. It’s probably delicious, but I’m gonna leave that to you.