Formed in Christchurch in 1999, Shapeshifter are a New Zealand live drum-and-bass group; The Upbeats are Wellington producers and DJs Jeremy Glenn and Dylan Jones. Shapeshifter’s founding members met at jazz school, and the group’s music draws on jazz, funk, rock and electronica alongside drum and bass. The Upbeats also perform under the names Terror Snake and Downie Wolf. Their work together began with Shapeshifter’s album Delta, which The Upbeats produced. The studio sessions helped develop The Upbeats’ production techniques, and the two acts began building a wider studio collaboration while working on the album.
In 2008, The Upbeats remixed Shapeshifter’s track Bring Change for a remix EP. Their collaboration later took the form of the 2014 EP SSXUB, recorded at The Upbeats’ studio and released through Truetone Recordings and Non Vogue. The EP’s lead single, “Bloodstream”, featured vocalist P Digsss and came out ahead of the full release. The two acts described their working methods as a meeting between The Upbeats’ technical, dancefloor-focused approach and Shapeshifter’s musicality and experimentation. The EP also includes “Antipodes,” “Solitaire,” “Aeon Night,” and “Little By Little.”
The Upbeats run their own label, Non Vogue, which also released the 2014 single “SSXUB (Shapeshifter vs The Upbeats)”. Shapeshifter’s earlier album Realtime featured vocalist Ladi6 on the track “Move With Me”. In 2019, Shapeshifter and The Upbeats released the single “Uncharted”.