Heralds Of Change (Hudson Mohawke & Mike Slott) – Puzzles

2017 Reissue / Repress

10th anniversary reissue of Puzzles, the record that really helped introduce both All City the label and Hudson Mohawke the producer to a wider audience all the way back in 2007 - the year dubstep broke the mainstream, the government snubbed our snouts in clubs, and bankers had a laugh, which all makes Mike Slott and HudMo’s Heralds of Change moniker seem uncannily prescient.

Puzzles was among a raft of new releases in 2007 that ushered in the whole wonky hip hop phaseshift, which in retrospect can be heard as a kind of retaliation against dubstep’s (by then) cartoonish rave antics by focussing a return to the jazzy boom bap principles of American hip hop proper, only with one leg shorter than the other. 

The six tracks inside have coolly withstood the test of time, with smoky nuggets to be (re)discovered in the hazy lean of Future and the fractal groove displacement of A Muse, reserving a definite scene highlight in the 8-bit glitter and skudged knocks of Spotted and their Timba or The Neptunes-styled banger, Work That.