Hujaboy has always been an artist that has gone in his own style, marching to his own beat and doing what he wants to do at different times in his 10+ year career. With a new album at TIP World, and some time passing between his previous releases, I was highly anticipating this. I want to comment on the cover artwork. At first I wasn’t into it, I was not a fan of the type of art even though I think the concept is hilarious. I changed my mind about it after listening to the music, some of the tracks are exactly describing the situation portrayed there and in the same manner the art is done.
The album starts with a relatively atmospheric intro, quite short yet foretelling and we dive right into the track. At 140bpm 'Night Vision' wastes no time to start with the little games of sounds followed by typical Hujaboy metal saws that are balanced off by rounder responses and a big warm driving base. 'Over Here, Over There' (T2) is next with a more full on approach. This track focuses much more on FX for its structure and comb filtered breaks that are so very strange… almost like a party in space with some strange animals around. The sample is just down right creepy, the track moves along and explodes at the end with pretty cool hook and finally into a break beat before making its final exit. 'Unreal' is one of the strong points of the album, one of my favorite tracks here. Picking up speed @145 bpm, 'Unreal' is jumpy and aggressively groovy. There are many cool breaks here and many moments for dj's to be very inventive with the mixing and playing of this track. The final explosion is very effective on the dance floor and the samples are very trippy. Moving along, the main title – 'Party Animals' (T4) is depicting exactly the event going on with the cover art. It is a track that's built very differently from the rest and has a special atmosphere about it. A steady beat drives while some quirky sounds start a conversation. Random shouts and echoes in the background are flying around until the next level is presented with a sharp metallic sound coming from a distance into my brain. The sounds are reminiscent of the British sound of the late nineties, crystal clear big and fat. The track artistically breaks into a period of relative calm where a glassy/metallic synth is playing a bizarre sad riff. The track does not have a big finish and culminates itself with a steady exit just as it came in. 'Mary Popills' is up with an interesting story line to it. A nice sense of balance with sharp sounds and cooler sounds and a witty development is its nature. This track like the previous one are both at 145bpm, but you do not feel like they are crushing you as 'Unreal' did with the same bpm count. My favorite dance floor oriented track is next, 'Time' (T6). This track has a quick intro and then gets down to business. Trippy samples, strong leads, pounding base lines… this track is cooking on all burners. The energy keeps building and building and concludes with an explosion sure to set dance floors ablaze. I find myself nodding my head when listening in my car and going faster in my driving. Moving on to 'Apocalypso' has a very funny and disturbed sample for its intro that comes in kicking. The mental hotline moves you until a break where the track with one of the most collosal buildups kicks in. there is a break and a buildup for about 2 minutes with a dirty electro feel to it, some dark techno pads from long ago and a serious ambience. "In the Village" (T8) is a concept with samples from one of my favorite shows of all times, "The Prisoner". The drive is warm yet not happy or silly, quirky and rhythmical. Long sustained synths are rolling like waves crashing on the beach. There is a turning point before a big break beat part, is a hypnotic calm followed by an electrical storm leading into that break. The break features those paranoid samples from the TV series done well. The end of this album has another track at 140 bpm. A special track… 'The Bush' is a track dedicated to the late dj Beka from Australia. Somewhere between progressive and full on, this piece builds up with tribal percussions that send u deep into the Australian bush. The track is emotional to say the least, much more if you know the terrible loss behind its story. Melodic epic synth lines and a lot of energy discharge is the culmination of it, quite refreshing.
One thing i would've liked to see is more of mixed connection between the tracks to give more of an album feeling rather then seperate tracks with a common theme. |
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