Hype Williams - Find Out What Happens When People Stop Being Polite, And Start Getting Reel
- Written by Greg Salter
The name Hype Williams immediately takes me back to sitting in my parents’ living room when I was younger, bored out of my mind, flicking through the music video channels on our TV. I did this a lot. If you were watching music videos in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, you probably saw a fair few made by Hype Williams – there were his cartoonish fish-eye camera videos like Missy Elliott’s ‘The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)’ that gave way to his mind-bogglingly expensive – but now very dated - productions, where his name popped up on the screen in BIG LETTERS before those of the artists. There was the futuristic, ejaculation-themed clip for Busta Rhymes and Janet Jackson’s ‘What’s It Gonna Be’, TLC’s inescapable‘No Scrubs’ or the, now poignant, video for Aaliyah’s ‘Rock The Boat’.
All of this has something to do with the band, Hype Williams - not just in that they’ve nicked his name. Possibly a duo, possibly not, and based in Berlin, or maybe London, or probably both, Hype Williams seem to specialise in nostalgia for pop culture from the immediate past. Their references, at least on the surface, go back to the mid ‘90s, max. Their recordings are snail-pace amalgamations of samples, sounds and field recordings, to the extent that it’s difficult to discern exactly how much has been appropriated from elsewhere. They give evasive, short answers in interviews, perform in masks, and view their tracks as combinations of music and art. And ‘Rescue Dawn’, the first track on their new release Find Out What Happens When People Stop Being Polite, And Start Getting Reel, opens with the auto-tuned sound of a baby crying.
Of course, musicians with a fondness for warping the R’n’B and hip hop of the last twenty years into their own shapes hasn’t been uncommon over the last few years - witness the stark intimacy of The XX’s breakthrough debut, James Blake’s CMYK EP from earlier this year, or How To Dress Well’s beautiful Love Remains. You can see parallels of their obsession with pop culture in the music of Swedes like The Tough Alliance and jj. However, Hype Williams avoid the sincerity of the former group of artists and the brighter tones of the latter – Find Out What Happens… is an unsettling, ambiguous mix of stuttering drum machines, slowed down samples and dark humour.
Opener ‘Rescue Dawn’ is a case in point – following the aforementioned auto-tuned baby comes a seductive R’n’B backing track and what could well be the theme tune to the Pokemon TV show, slowed right down. Written down like that, it sounds awful, but the mix of strange elements - some of which only emerge after several listens – is kind of addictive and entertaining. ‘Blue Dream’ plays like one of Hype Williams’ home made videos – all slo-mo synths and heavy bass, you can hear the remnants of a regular paced song in their somewhere. ‘The Throning’ has you guessing again – after a few listens you suddenly realise you’re hearing Sade’s ‘Sweetest Taboo’ buried under cheap, clattering beats and reverb. Elsewhere, ‘Jesus To A Child’ bears no relation on the surface to the George Michael hit, but it could be heavily disguised.
The band have a Warholian approach to pop culture, and I like that they avoid being too obvious in their references – dragging elements back into their music that most of us are quite happy to have forgotten adds a bit of humour to their sinister, homemade tracks. Their use of twisted samples and vintage sounds makes me think of the Warp duo Boards of Canada – they too took sounds and voices from their half remembered childhood and made sometimes unsettling, sometimes beautiful tracks with them. Hype Williams’ sound is darker, and while their humour, ramshackle approach and ambiguity may be too much for some, others, like me, will be intrigued to see where they go next.