Hanz Reducer

At a time when most hip hop production sounds as if it's stuck in preset mode, Reducer feels like a vital injection of creativity, harking back to a time in the past when no sample and no sound was off limits. Opening track, 'The History of…', a dizzying collage of broken drum machine beats, white noise shards and glitchy dub, is a good place to start in trying to epitomize the energy of the record. From there on Hanz continues to take the listener on a trip into a dark, complex headspace where haunted patois vocals, industrial drums, harps, elastic bass-lines and dystopian hip hop beats collide. It's his capability of collapsing one sound world into another almost seamlessly, whilst retaining a distinctly raw punk energy throughout that sets Hanz aside. It makes for an unpredictable and thrilling listen.