Hudson Mohawke - Ded Sec - Watch Dogs 2 (OST)

Pitchfork 72

Hudson Mohawke does drama better than most. His drums move with the heft of a cruiserweight boxer—powerful but lithe, kicks and snares leaving dents where they land. His rhythms come from trap, but his atmospheres couldn't be further than that genre’s grimy, boarded-up noir: His music positively glistens with chimes and arpeggios, and his monumental horn fanfare suggests armor-plated legions battering down castle doors, or angels raving at the pearly gates.

Those contradictions have made him one of the most interesting producers in pop music. His beats stud songs by Kanye, Drake, and Pusha T like luxurious expanses of diamond pavé, brilliant yet still rough to the touch. And working alongside Daniel Lopatin, aka Oneohtrix Point Never, he provided Anohni’s HOPELESSNESS with a harrowing fusion of liturgical gravitas and Hollywood blockbuster. (Despite having been labeled a maximalist, he knows when to get the hell out of the way, and the restraint he brings to Anohni’s album only serves to highlight her own larger-than-life presence.)

There’s no lack of drama in his soundtrack to Ded Sec - Watch Dogs 2, which is good: It is, after all, an action-adventure open-world video game about hackers and global corruption, in which spectacular acts of anti-establishment violence play out against the backdrop of San Francisco and the Silicon Valley. HudMo’s music is a natural fit, and he brings his most effective tricks to the table: heart-in-mouth trombone blasts, blindingly bright synthesizer melodies, bruising drums. His customary sound set—a mixture of obviously synthesized brass with simulacral acoustic instruments like harpsichord and piano—complements the uncanny valley of the game world, a painstaking recreation of various Bay Area neighborhoods. If anything, he frequently upends expectations for video-game soundtracks by tilting away from purely electronic textures. Elegiac piano, strings, and choir give the opening “Shanghaied” a feel like John Williams gone trap. Loping Afro-Cuban percussion rounds out the giddily maximalist “Play N Go,” and the symphonic percussion of the regal “Haum Sweet Haum” is faintly reminiscent of Hans Zimmer’s score for Inception.

Ded Sec probably shouldn’t be considered a proper follow-up to last year’s Lantern, but it actually holds up favorably in that regard. With a mixture of full-length tracks and minute-long sketches, it’s nicely varied. The short, shimmering ambient study “W4tched (Cinema)” suggests that the producer may have picked up a trick or two from Oneohtrix Point Never during their time together working on Anohni’s album, and OPN’s influence also hangs over the gorgeous, light-speed “Cyber Driver,” with its R2D2 chirps and space-elevator arps. “Amethyst” pairs dial-tone synths and horror-movie organs with scissor-handed snare-and-hi-hat acrobatics in a way that makes even the most hackneyed trap tropes feel vibrant—no easy task. And on the short, kinetic “Balance,” he continually keeps you guessing as to where the downbeat will land; his tricky programming, playing triplets off constantly shifting syncopations, reveals him as one of the most rhythmically interesting producers out there right now.

In fact, despite the omnipresence of his customary blare, what might be most interesting here are the nuances that he brings to the table. In “Eye for an Eye (Reprise),” a quiet sketch for FM synths, he strips away the drums to let us see just how dexterous his timbral touch is, every note a jewel-toned liquid explosion. Before “Watch Dogs Theme” builds to its expected climax, with buzzing chords firing like illuminated jets of water, he rolls out a curious, elliptical drum pattern that seems to be pulling itself apart at the seams. Like many of the most interesting moments on Ded Sec, the real action is happening just beneath the surface of all those shiny things. It’s enough to make you wonder what a shadowier, more minimalist Hudson Mohawke might sound like. We’ve basked in the glow of his rockets’ red glare; what would it be like to taste their acrid soot?