Tri Angle’s Hanz drags us through a filmic realm of decomposing golden era hip-hop rumbles and concrète drones.
Back in 2015 and with little fanfare, Robin Carolan’s Tri Angle label put out Reducer, a reissue of Hanz’s fourth self-released album. It was something of an oddity for the label, a gloomy, hip-hop influenced collection of tumbling samples, searing noise and half-heard dialog snatches.
This year, after uploading a sequence of experiments to his active Bandcamp page, Hanz, aka North Carolina-based producer Brandon Juhans announced two EPs, Plasty I and Plasty II. These two records show a massive step forward for the beatmaker, exploring well-worn textures but with a new level of confidence. The cinematic influence is now sitting at the center of his production process as Juhans chops samples with the absurdist technique of William S. Burroughs or Brion Gysin.
Juhans’ FACT mix takes these influences and runs with them, kicking off with Ice T’s ‘Squeeze the Trigger’ and The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s ‘EXP’ before rolling into an anonymous production from Juhans himself and This Heat’s influential ’24 Track Loop’. This run is characteristic of not only the mix but Hanz’s diverse range – each sound is used to mark a narrative that’s eerie, anxious and unsettling.
Plasty I is out on Tri Angle on January 19.
Tracklist:
Ice T – ‘Squeeze the Trigger’
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – ‘EXP’
Hanz – ‘?’
This Heat – ’24 Track Loop’
Souls of Mischief – ‘Freshdope’
Hanz – ‘Unreleased I’
Jimmy Spicer – ‘The Adventures of Super Rhymes’
Hanz – ‘Rust’
A.C. Marias – ‘Drop’
Black Moon – ‘Slave’
The Pop Group – ‘We Are Time’
Wildstyle OST – ‘Gangbusters’
Hanz – ‘Unreleased II’
Hanz (Feat. Meuko! Meuko!) – ‘Unreleased III’
Hanz – ‘Wagner in the Whip’
De La Soul – ‘Transmitting Live From Mars’
Gray – ‘Drum Mode’
Futura 2000 (Feat. The Clash) – ‘The Escapades of Futura 2000’
Hanz – ‘War Fiction’
John Twells is FACT’s managing editor. Find him on Twitter.
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