There are points on Lantern where you wish he’d give the bloody mindedness a rest. More often, it proves his point: the strange, beguiling sound of man neatly evading whatever pigeonholes he’s been shoved in.
With Lantern, Mohawke transcends any pigeonholing once and for all, offering a polished vision of his genre-agnostic world.
On Lantern, Mohawke's long-anticipated followup, the Glaswegian producer eschews the bombast he's embraced these last few years for something more mature, songwriterly and, yes, restrained.
Birchard is a long-established talent behind the decks, but Lantern – a defiantly slick sophomore LP – proves that being in high demand has in no way diluted his craft.
The results are occasionally quite compelling and occasionally mediocre, but Mohawke never flags in his energy or charisma. Lantern is a solid party album that demonstrates great potential in the places where it doesn’t already shine.
A less talented hand might’ve faltered juggling six different genres as Mohawke does throughout Lantern, but his knowledge of what gets a crowd moving, coupled with his good cheer in both playing directly to it and coyly holding back as he pleases help keep the album’s experiments a minimum of fun and danceable, but more often shocking and delightful.
While Butter could be described as whimsical, it's as uniform as a prog epic compared to Lantern, a relatively disjointed assembly of tracks seemingly drawn from working folders labeled like "athletic anthems," "theatrical intros and interludes," "almost pop," "space ballads," and "misc."
While Mohawke’s nuanced versatility isn’t exactly exercised to the fullest with the cheesy, oversaturated splendor of Lantern, there are some unexpected disruptive notes that keep a level of dynamism to the music.
When Lantern hits its high points, it ends up somewhere in the stratosphere. When it falters, it's mostly because it's too ambitious, either thematically, as with the overblown love songs, or technically, as with the roller-coaster sequencing that halts the momentum over and over.
Hudson Mohawk comes through with some lackluster production on his latest record.
just make some god damn bangers dude it's not that hard wtf is this shit??? "music"!!!!!!!! lol no just cause it's slow and has some pretty vocals doesn't make it good. call lunice and throw some hi hats and 808s down for fucks sake
( ★ ★ ½ )
favorite tracks:
» 02. very first breath ( feat. irfane )
» 03. ryderz
» 04. warriors ( feat. ruckazoid and devauex )
» 05. kettles
» 07. indian steps ( feat. antony )
1 | Lantern 1:58 | 70 |
2 | Very First Breath 3:04 feat. Irfane | 75 |
3 | Ryderz 2:42 | 86 |
4 | Warriors 4:22 | 95 |
5 | Kettles 3:03 | 76 |
6 | Scud Books 3:44 | 100 |
7 | Indian Steps 4:36 feat. ANOHNI | 78 |
8 | Lil Djembe 2:34 | 81 |
9 | Deepspace 4:13 feat. Miguel | 88 |
10 | Shadows 2:30 | 86 |
11 | Resistance 3:49 feat. Jhené Aiko | 82 |
12 | Portrait of Luci 3:12 | 80 |
13 | System 4:16 | 86 |
14 | Brand New World 3:14 | 90 |
#5 | / | Mixmag |
#10 | / | Crack Magazine |
#19 | / | Complex |
#28 | / | Dummy |
#29 | / | Variance |
#35 | / | The Skinny |
#38 | / | Pigeons & Planes |