Hudson Mohawke

Hudson Mohawke exists in a rare space in music. He is simultaneously ubiquitous and guarded, recondite and unmistakable. Though his style adapts and adheres to whatever musical form requires it, his distinct and self-referencing postmodern sonic hallmarks have made him an omnipresent and irreplaceable part of the soundtrack of our times.

Where producers tinker with genre boundaries and hybrid forms in forward-thinking nightclubs and bedroom-based D.I.Y. setups, the Glasgow-bred Ross Birchard operates like some H.R. Giger-esque architectural terraformer by contrast. Building worlds rather than dropping beats, the holistic nature of his misfit genius came with a cutting sense of humor and an ingrained distrust of convention.

Where many of his generational peers have spent the past five years scrambling to hop on some trendy wave or otherwise circling the drain, Mohawke’s continuing work never failed to sound not only of its time but also consistently on the verge of new euphoria.