HHOST - Ladder To Wave CD

Just who the heck is Hhost??? Is it Banksy? Al Montfort? Grace Lee aka PissDog6? One of Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst’s AI creations? The mystery remains. Well, we have one clue, Sydney, so that rules 3⁄4 ‘s of them out.

I’ve enjoyed all the Hhost releases so far, 3 cassette tapes (on Altered States Tapes, Bunyip Tracks and Moontown) in total, but this compact disc on Nice Music is a real level up. On ‘Ladder To Wave’ Hhost joins two big points on my music mind map with bright red string: Dizzee Rascal and Wolf Eyes.

I’m being a bit silly and a few readers may be picturing Charlie from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, and maybe it’s my particular late teenage brain wiring but, I hear many parallels between my 2000s entry points into UK Grime and the US Noise/Psycho Jazz underground.

Hhost explores the possibilities of basement/home office no-input mixing/busted circuit board experiments and with the most murky and legitimately alien developments in (wot u call it?) music associated with cracked copies of Fruity Loops and MPCs.

Deep, crisp and disorientating arrangements of untamed electricity, hissing white noise, rim shots, 808s etc. It’s in the zone. - Nic