Let me start by saying I really like Hudson Mohawke. Pointing out this guy is ahead of his time is just stating the obvious. His itchy space-age creations feverishly hop between styles, twitching with ADHD mania, seemingly having invented their cornucopia of influences themselves. It really is as if he’s here from the future.
New EP ‘Satin Panthers’, however, is a mixed bag I feel. Easier to digest, in some ways, than the overwhelming explosion of directions he frazzled us with in his 2009 releases, these five tracks are a little saner, a little tamer and a little less outrageous. That said, I still feel in places like I'm surfing through a DMT trip in space.
The EP kicks off with the euphoric ‘Octan’, a hypnotic union of glittering metallic arpeggios and big, fat bass. No surprises here, but a great track to start the album. It does however go a little south for ‘Thunder Bay’ and ‘Cbat’, which both brandish slightly annoying riffs, although the fairytale synths of the latter paint a delicious and glittery intro that can't be sniffed at.
The last two tracks on the album made up for any shortfall the previous two might have incurred, and totally blew me away. ‘All Your Love’ and ‘Thank You’ are both breathtaking and sublime. Fried with treble, the former has a jerky house-like feel to it, and is positively bursting with cool production tricks. The latter snaps along with a rat-tatting military-style snare, with a woozy synth blanket folded over - which at one point is butchered into jagged syncopation, a section that will even have your nan pulling shapes like a pillhead. Whilst I missed the refreshing “fuck you quantization” of ‘butter’ on this record, the danceability and smooth chopping of these last two just about made up for it.
Although ‘Satin Panthers’ may have lost some of the frantic juggling of ‘Butter’ or ‘Polyfolk Dance’, it is still wildly experimental and exciting. And if HudMo’s chaotic side is a little more refined now, at least it means I can put his tracks on at parties and get a few less people telling me “that’s just...weird”.
