After announcing his new album Lantern for a June 2015 release, Hudson Mohawke released a new song on Rinse FM titled “Ryderz” last night during his airwaves takeover.
After releasing the first song off of his highly anticipated album, “Very First Breath” HudMo took over Rinse FM last night to preview his newest track “Ryderz.” The Scottish producer who has worked with acts such as Drake and Kanye West in the past shows an excellent knack for a soul sampled beat. The song starts out with the sample which says, “Watch out for the riders/ keep a light up for the bad ones.” The beat drops, and figuratively blew me away. The sample loops on as trumpets blare majestically, saxophone riffs invade the airspace, and in typical HudMo fashion synths and electronic sounds are thrown in. That combination of sounds usually results in cacophony, but in this case the full bodied nature of the track is almost overwhelming. Super powerful as if a hero finally arrived into town through the wreckage and smoke of crushed cars and burning buildings to save the day just as all hope was being lost. Hudson Mohawke screws the sample slowing it down towards the end. This simple change up brought the soul-based beat -which some view as antiquated- into the present times.
When talking about his inspiration behind the track HudMo released a few different statements. In a press clipping to MassAppeal, Hudson Mohawke spoke on the sample based beat as being “ode to a particular era of hip hop that was based on soul samples which I fucking still absolutely love.” This sample-based era he is referring to was mastered by one of HudMo’s biggest influencers in Kanye West. When talking to NME News Hudson detailed exactly how Kanye and another legendary producer Rick Rubin influenced him in the making of Lantern.
“A lot of [the inspiration for ‘Lantern’] was observing how Rick Rubin works,” the producer said. “Just being in his company and observing the fact that he’s not playing with keyboards, he’s not touching a mouse, not looking at a screen. He’s just got his eyes closed, listening. So if I’ve almost finished something, and I wanna listen to it, the computer screen gets turned off. I’ll go and stand outside the room and listen to it as if it’s playing in a club.”
Hudson Mohawke’s album Lantern will be in stores June 16th, and the track list can be seen below with a link to the first single “Very First Breath (ft. Irfane).”
Lantern Track List
01. Lantern
02. Very First Breath (ft. Irfane)
03. Ryderz
04. Warriors (ft. Ruckazoid & Devaeux)
05. Kettles
06. Scud Books
07. Indian Steps (ft. Antony)
08. Lil Djembe
09. Deepspace (ft. Miguel)
10. Shadows
11. Resistance (ft. Jhené Aiko)
12. Portrait Of Luci
13. System
14. Brand New World