Hudson Mohawke, criminally underrated as he is, just released his third studio album, Cry Sugar, this past Friday. Typically, we do our best to share news of a release of this magnitude day-of, but this album is so dense and unique that we just had to take the weekend (plus another day) to fully digest it.
The new full length arrives featuring previously released singles “Bicstan,” “Stump,” and “Dance Forever.” Cry Sugar deepens his practice of producing motivational music for club goers — uplifting the debauchery and inspiring many through his own brand of anthemic maximalism. Indeed, party of HudMo’s production charm is the way he puts so much into each and every track, whether it’s the magical notes of “Stump,” the grandiose, M83-esque “Lonely Days,” or the crazy and wild “3 Sheets To The Wind.”
Amidst the sound of MRI machines and contorted celebratory howls, Mohawke hints at an athletic ability to rage well into the next decade. The result of which has been a production style able to integrate elements of jazz fusion, prog rock, happy hardcore, chiptune, and more with formal educations in rave, hip-hop, soul, IDM, and glitch. The broad and complex nuance of all these genres and more has become the palette of the Hudson Mohawke sound.
Stated in the release for the album, “Cry Sugar serves as Hudson Mohawke’s first work deeply informed by apocalyptic film scores and soundtracks by everyone from the late Vangelis to the goofy major-chord pomp of 90s John Williams. Especially on tracks like ‘Stump,’ gut-wrenching scenes emerge as party-goers return home post-club amidst rising sea-levels, bomb cyclones, and flickering wildfires. Cry Sugar also serves as Mohawke’s own demented OST to score the twilight of our cultural meltdown. As the album’s artwork (by Wayne horse Willehad Eilers) depicts—we are arm-in-arm with the Ghostbusters marshmallow man, returning home while swinging a bottle of Jack only to gaze out at the gray tempest of a coming catastrophe.”
Listen to the eclectic 19-track album, Cry Sugar, from Hudson Mohawke, below.
Photo by Jonnie Chambers