Hype Williams - Find Out What Happens…

It’s like being sat in a doctor’s lounge, oustide a club. The beats, the sounds seep through the walls, comforting in their closeness, but still you’re not there. It’s all so dislocated. You’re not where they are. You’re waiting to be called up, prodded and poked, but still, you’ve got these minutes, this short space of time beforehand to let the walls bleed out and drip all over you.

London / Berlin based duo Hype Williams are on the other side of that wall. You can’t see them, and you can make out their sound, it’s all a little hush hush. How many of them are behind that wall? Is anyone else there with them, or are they just zoned out, honed in on what it is they’re doing? And what is it exactly that they’re doing?

‘Find Out What Happens When People Stop Being Polite And Start Getting Reel’ is not the first you will have heard from this elusive project. It’s been a while now that they’re been piecing together various bits of sound, sampling modern day hip hop superstars (hey, Drake) and twisting it just enough to make it different. Hm, ‘just enough’ isn’t right. It’s very different. The inspiration is palpable but when you layer on awkward beat after awkward beat it tends to get lost in the mix.

Clocking in at less than twenty five minutes, ‘Find Out…’ is not a uniform piece of work. Some parts waver on for four minutes, others buzz aimlessly for less than one. It is an oeuvre void of shape and form, but it all comes together like nothing you’re ever heard before. ‘The Throning’ comes off like some familiar late 80s tv theme, drowned out by elevator music like beats. ‘Jesus to a Child’ (mk. I and mk. II) hold a sense of urgency in their drug like drones. Oh yeah and then there’s the opener, ‘Rescue Dawn 2’ coming at you with the wailing of that autotune baby to then drop fast into a tune not unlike Teengirl Fantasy’s ‘Portofino’ doused in the slowed down lyrics of the Pokemon theme. Still with me?

It’s being asleep and awake all at once. Copious amounts of ketamine and a heavy, earthy red wine. Lacklustre and exciting. Wanna get to the other side, wanna be on the other side of that wall, but maybe I shouldn’t. The thick set distance- hang on, did my phone just ring? Oh. Where was I? Where are they? It’s over, it’s all over. And still I haven’t a clue. But that doesn’t seem to matter anymore, I like it the way it is. I don’t want to know, but I want to listen to it again. I’d rather be sat in that lounge, air thick and weighty, getting’ bled on.