Cry Sugar

Hudson Mohawke makes a powerful statement by pairing together both the sacred and the profane. Cry Sugar is a portrait of our time, as well as the state of club music in 2022, in that the truest art is that without boundaries. That said, when you put everything aside, what you’re ultimately left with is yet another LP full of titanic productions. Which may be its biggest most salient point of all.

Recorded in his adopted home of Los Angeles, Cry Sugar continues Hudson Mohawke’s recent mission to create aspirational music from the tools of the club, but with an even keener eye towards optimism and sustainability. Cry Sugar also includes even more of Hudson Mohawke’s push-pull between high and low culture: allusions to Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and John Williams rub up against the huge swinging bass of the “trap music” he (deliberately or not) helped codify on his earlier records. That battle of motivation is also played out thematically within the songs themselves. Tracks like ‘Stump’, ‘Expo’, and ‘Some Buzz’ nod towards environmental disaster while ‘3 Sheets To The Wind’ revels in debauchery. Who’s to say which mode is more important to focus on.

Hudson Mohawke is prioritising health. He’s still out at 7AM with the ravers mind you, but he’s grilling food next door to the club to hand out to exhausted punters as they emerge into the sunlight following an all-nighter. True story or not, he had made a habit of a different kind of early morning session by giving back to the dancers, the nightlife warriors, the people who make dance music culture so enveloping. That spirit of revestment and of paying tribute to the lifers is reflected throughout his new LP Cry Sugar.