ALWAYS EVERYTHING

HYPE WILLIAMS // ONE NATION

There’s been a fair amount of suspicion surrounding Hype Williams over the last few months, as if people aren’t quite sure how to take their scattershot approach to the official signifiers of high and lowbrow culture. The fact that they’re happy to meld trashy YouTube virals with the sort of exquisite, dreamy synthscapes usually peddled by people who wear too much hemp, combined with their vaguely dismissive attitude towards press attention appears to have worried certain listeners. It certainly makes it easy to think of them as a homegrown equivalent to James Ferraro, who displays the same deadpan tendencies and whose more astrally inclined music (Last American Hero; Marble Surf; Pixarni) is probably their closest sonic bedfellow.

But if their live show in Plastic People last night - taking over the crucible that nurtured dubstep and transforming it into a low-lit devotional space - proved anything, it’s that US lo-fi comparisons are simplistic in the extreme. What many of their contemporaries across the pond lack, and what Hype Williams carry an excess of, is weight. On the Plastic People soundsystem (worshipping at the temple of sub-bass, if you like; there’s an interesting comparison to be made there) their airier-sounding tracks take on overwhelmingly hefty, physically overwhelming form. It’s as if the lairy swagger of grime had, even just for a moment, allowed vulnerability and insecurity to take hold, then extrapolated that few seconds outward. In essence and attitude, they’re far closer to the experimental ends of the UK bass scene than to any genre beginning with H.

Their new album One Nation is further proof of that connection; over thirteen songs and forty-five minutes, they pretty accurately manage to capture that contradictory mix of satisfaction and misery that accompanies a particularly virulent comedown. All served with fuckloads of sub and their usual slightly-too-cool detachment. It makes sense that they’ve recently signed to Hyperdub for a single and album, and while they shouldn’t need it, hopefully that endorsement will help to validate them in the eyes of unconvinced parties.

I reviewed the record for The Quietus in more detail, specifically with reference to Hype Williams’ interesting engagement with the boundary-blurred information age. You can read it here. 

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Hype Williams are playing at the Croft, Bristol, tomorrow night (26th March) alongside Raime. If you’re in Bristol and not heading down to this, slap yourself and swiftly reconsider your options.

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Rory