Hudson Mohawke
B.B.H.E.
Album · Electronic · 2020
Hudson Mohawke’s 2015 album Lantern caught him at the peak of his powers: Both solo and in the duo TNGHT, the Scottish producer’s maximalist trap-rave had reconfigured the pop landscape and landed him on records from Drake, Lil Wayne, Pusha T, and Kanye. Then, after 2016's DedSec - Watch Dogs 2 soundtrack, he went quiet. But his hiatus had one benefit: It gave him time to go through old hard drives. Assembled during the 2020 pandemic, B.B.H.E. (Big Booty Hiking Expedition) gathers the fruits of that harvest.
Collecting unreleased tracks from as far back as the mid-2000s, B.B.H.E. offers a remarkably expansive portrait of Mohawke, one that runs from his trademark main-stage brain-melters to hip-hop beats that reflect his years as a teenage turntablist. Cuts like “Brooklyn” and “100Hm” capture his talent in all its pyrotechnic glory, overdriven kicks and minor-key organs slicing through the air like bottle rockets. But the curveballs are just as exciting: “Mandarania” shudders like a clothes dryer with a brick in it, its triple-time breakbeats casting blurry glances at his labelmate Squarepusher. And some of the album’s best tracks draw from a wellspring of boom-bap grooves, flipping bossa nova guitars, fizzy house synths, and scratched-CD glitches into head-nodding beats with an almost bucolic vibe. A world away from Lantern’s weaponized super-saw synths, these hip-hop instrumentals suggest an alternate universe where Mohawke traded rugged trap for pastoral folktronica.
Collecting unreleased tracks from as far back as the mid-2000s, B.B.H.E. offers a remarkably expansive portrait of Mohawke, one that runs from his trademark main-stage brain-melters to hip-hop beats that reflect his years as a teenage turntablist. Cuts like “Brooklyn” and “100Hm” capture his talent in all its pyrotechnic glory, overdriven kicks and minor-key organs slicing through the air like bottle rockets. But the curveballs are just as exciting: “Mandarania” shudders like a clothes dryer with a brick in it, its triple-time breakbeats casting blurry glances at his labelmate Squarepusher. And some of the album’s best tracks draw from a wellspring of boom-bap grooves, flipping bossa nova guitars, fizzy house synths, and scratched-CD glitches into head-nodding beats with an almost bucolic vibe. A world away from Lantern’s weaponized super-saw synths, these hip-hop instrumentals suggest an alternate universe where Mohawke traded rugged trap for pastoral folktronica.
B.B.H.E.
Hudson Mohawke
Hudson Mohawke’s 2015 album Lantern caught him at the peak of his powers: Both solo and in the duo TNGHT, the Scottish producer’s maximalist trap-rave had reconfigured the pop landscape and landed him on records from Drake, Lil Wayne, Pusha T, and Kanye. Then, after 2016's DedSec - Watch Dogs 2 soundtrack, he went quiet. But his hiatus had one benefit: It gave him time to go through old hard drives. Assembled during the 2020 pandemic, B.B.H.E. (Big Booty Hiking Expedition) gathers the fruits of that harvest.
Collecting unreleased tracks from as far back as the mid-2000s, B.B.H.E. offers a remarkably expansive portrait of Mohawke, one that runs from his trademark main-stage brain-melters to hip-hop beats that reflect his years as a teenage turntablist. Cuts like “Brooklyn” and “100Hm” capture his talent in all its pyrotechnic glory, overdriven kicks and minor-key organs slicing through the air like bottle rockets. But the curveballs are just as exciting: “Mandarania” shudders like a clothes dryer with a brick in it, its triple-time breakbeats casting blurry glances at his labelmate Squarepusher. And some of the album’s best tracks draw from a wellspring of boom-bap grooves, flipping bossa nova guitars, fizzy house synths, and scratched-CD glitches into head-nodding beats with an almost bucolic vibe. A world away from Lantern’s weaponized super-saw synths, these hip-hop instrumentals suggest an alternate universe where Mohawke traded rugged trap for pastoral folktronica.
Collecting unreleased tracks from as far back as the mid-2000s, B.B.H.E. offers a remarkably expansive portrait of Mohawke, one that runs from his trademark main-stage brain-melters to hip-hop beats that reflect his years as a teenage turntablist. Cuts like “Brooklyn” and “100Hm” capture his talent in all its pyrotechnic glory, overdriven kicks and minor-key organs slicing through the air like bottle rockets. But the curveballs are just as exciting: “Mandarania” shudders like a clothes dryer with a brick in it, its triple-time breakbeats casting blurry glances at his labelmate Squarepusher. And some of the album’s best tracks draw from a wellspring of boom-bap grooves, flipping bossa nova guitars, fizzy house synths, and scratched-CD glitches into head-nodding beats with an almost bucolic vibe. A world away from Lantern’s weaponized super-saw synths, these hip-hop instrumentals suggest an alternate universe where Mohawke traded rugged trap for pastoral folktronica.
