Bleep

Hodge spent the 2010s establishing himself as one of the most important representatives of the new Bristol sound, one that combined the city’s bassweight history with techno and house influences. His releases on labels such as Livity Sound, Tectonic and Hemlock set the pace for other producers in the scene. Now Hodge has finally made good on a decade of EPs with his first full-length album Shadows In Blue.

The additional scope afforded by the LP format has allowed Hodge to experiment with sounds and genres that his previous work has only hinted at. Take Shadows In Blue’s opening two cuts - ‘Canopy Shy’ begins the record with a humid ambience that is pitched somewhere between illbient music, new-age composition and the synthetic reveries of Jam City’s Classical Curves. This track soon dissolves into ‘The World Is New Again’, a piece of bright cyberpunk electronics that nods to Vangelis, Daniel Lopatin and Nathan Micay. Hodge returns to these sounds several times throughout the record - cheekily-titled closer ‘One Last Dance’, for example, is a beautiful impressionistic sound collage.

Amid the more abstract cuts here Hodge still makes sure to include a good helping of the club wedges that he has made his name with. The skittering xylophones and urgent beats of the Shadows In Blue title-track recall the records that Hodge released on Berceuse Heroique back in 2018; ‘Cutie’ and Lanes’ both ride the dubbed-out soundsystem techno sound of Ploy, Batu et al; ‘Sense Inversion’ balances quick, stiff-necked rhythms with lush atmospheres to invoke D. Tiffany.

On his debut LP Shadows In Blue, Bristolian producer Hodge expands his soundworld to balance leftfield techno with ambient tracks, electronic compositions and even forays into musique concrete.