The tremendous saturated, mass consumerist tradition of late capitalist America is not any a brand new idea for digital music, its neon drenched aesthetics and inherent overstimulation at all times ripe for selecting. It’s maybe been most outstanding as a serious affect on the aesthetics and route of hyperpop, first embraced as an allegory for pop itself by SOPHIE, circa-2012. Hudson Mohawke, the moniker of Ross Birchard, just isn’t a reputation instantly synonymous with the hyperpop motion or its PC Music roots, however if you happen to hear carefully to the Scottish producer’s catalogue you’ll discover the blueprint for acts like Umru or 1000 Gecs within the DNA of his sound. It’s a sound he’s been pioneering since 2009, pre-dating PC Music’s come up by about three years. His album Butter, launched in 2009, sounded alarmingly forward of its time. Its saccharine, helium soaked manufacturing tore up the conventions of then hip-hop, whereas its abrupt fashion mashups broke the conventions of style. And although Birchard by no means fairly related Hudson Mohawke with pop, assimilating as an alternative into the glitch-hop and wonky scenes, Butter felt accessible to the informal listener in a method that his friends weren’t. It felt pop. And it felt lightyears sooner or later. Nonetheless, his thematic considerations differed from those that would go on to evolve the strategy into hyperpop. He was much less involved with theoretical idea, as an alternative permitting himself “to simply fuck round… with out the strain of ‘I’ve to make successful immediately’, or ‘I’ve to make one thing that works on an enormous pageant stage.” On Cry Sugar, his first album in seven years, he’s achieved fucking round. Instantly knowledgeable by dwelling in LA and what he calls “American decadence” and “the quintessential backdrop of late capitalism,” Cry Sugar acknowledges the hyperpop manifesto however doesn’t a lot embrace it somewhat than blow it up altogether.
Notably Birchard is embracing pop greater than ever earlier than; maybe unavoidable, given the album’s thematic considerations. On Dance Ceaselessly, he builds a mutant Timbaland hip-hop beat round an earworm vocal hook, accented with rave synths and the sound of energy drills. Come A Little Nearer feels like an intensification of the type of pop 3OH3! and Owl Metropolis championed again of their heyday. There’s Kanye West throughout Redeem. Equally, he locations soulful R&B and gospel vocals on the centre of Intentions and Behold, the latter carefully resembling the farcical pop monstrosities of SOPHIE within the vein of Immaterial whereas elsewhere, Lonely Days and Stump owe a lot to the longform soundscapes on Oil Of Each Individual’s Uninsides. This pivot towards pop and R&B tropes isn’t precisely new for Birchard. He started embracing vocals and hooks extra vehemently on 2015’s Lantern, although on that album he eschewed jagged, futurist manufacturing for one thing extra easy. The fruits of mixing his newfound pop sensibilities along with his erratic glitch instincts produces one thing new within the scope of Hudson Mohawke, but in addition one thing that sounds all too acquainted in a post-hyperpop local weather. This isn’t to imagine that Birchard got down to create a hyperpop album, per se, however what he arrives at on Cry Sugar is alarmingly near the place PC Music was a couple of years again, and the place 100 Gecs are simply in entrance of. There are nonetheless some moments of freshness. Bow particularly feels like one thing A.G. Prepare dinner and Pharrell Williams would possibly cook dinner up collectively ought to they ever cross paths, a neo-funk track set to industrial glitch-hop. However total, there’s a way that Birchard is much less involved with the longer term than he’s with the current.
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On this sense, Cry Sugar triumphs in capturing the wide-eyed, panic assault inducing onslaught of American consumerism and mass media. Like SOPHIE earlier than him, the target distance of not really being American permits Birchard to create some poignant statements. The intense and optimistic keys of Is It Supposed remembers the jingles of each sunlit, household stuffed commercial ever, or the opening tune of a morning information present. That Birchard ought to lengthen this right into a full, ceaseless six minutes is abdomen turning, and good. Juxtaposed with the spirited gospel of tracks like Redeem, Some Buzz, or Intentions, it makes for a jarring expertise.
Each bit of Cry Sugar swings from one excessive to the following, echoing the absurdity of American life. The tracks right here play on completely different sides of this life and tradition, and the alarming disparities between teams of its inhabitants. This makes the album work finest as an entire. It’s a piece of overwhelming maximalism, an enormous pastiche of trash, pop, and consumerist cultures. A megamix uploaded to advertise the album condenses its nineteen tracks right into a 5 and a half minute absurdist pop pastiche. It’s set to an over-saturated video that includes mutant 3D animations of dystopian landscapes, humanoid bald eagles, a jacked Donald Duck, Johnny Depp, and the Teletubbies solar child. Inside these 5 and a half minutes, everything of Cry Sugar is put into focus, like popping an Adderall. Truthfully, Adderall could also be a good suggestion when approaching this album. Cry Suagr is a bloated, gonzo, oft grotesque mindfuck, and simply probably the most completely fascinating work Hudson Mohawke has made to this point.
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Watch the Cry Sugar megamix under.
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