#hyplur

Ben Aqua, #hyPLUR Generation Mix for Cluster Mag, 2013

Ben Aqua is naturally impossible to pin down. Wrapping your head around the twitchy onslaught of Ben’s discography is especially difficult if you haven’t also scrolled through his equally eccentric portfolio of photography and digital collage. The audio feed reflects and refracts the visual—album art, flyers, Facebook ephemera, fine art—and it all rolls up into a weird and sexy brand identity under the header #FEELINGS. The work that he contributed to Face Time Continuum, a 2011 group show at Berlin’s Future Gallery explored “faces as a material through the gaze of the Internet.” I’d go so far as to say that his entire output—the catalog of his Austin-based record label and his prolific visual art practice alike—is soldered together with a pair of Internet goggles permanently grafted onto his eye holes. His mantra is “never log off,” and whatever it means to be “of the Internet,” we all know what it does to culture: history, geography, and, well, facts, collapse under the weight of constant exchange and experimentation.

Ben Aqua is big daddy of the #FEELINGS family, a record label and artist collective with members scattered across the entire North American continent. The #FEELINGS flag flies in Jersey, Brooklyn, Kansas City, and across the Lone Star State; the network of fans extends even farther. I had been following Ben for a few months before Cluster Mag brought him in from Austin, TX to headline an event at Boston’s Together festival. My first encounter had been on Soundcloud when he uploaded his jacked up, tooth-grinding remix of Nicki Minaj’s “Stupid Hoe.” On his Facebook there were all of his high-octane selfies and hypersurreal portraits, and that’s when I knew he had more going for him than just a crate of great records.

This mix showcases not only the #FEELINGS catalog but a thick slice of juke and footwork, genres that circulated quietly in Chicago for a decade before changing the face of electronic music across the globe. Add a dash of euphoric trance, Atlanta radio rap, and some skronky experimental shit that I’ve never even heard of, and there you have it. Sort of. And while you’re at it, check the brilliant new video directed by Tomás Peña for Ben Aqua’s recent single “Reset Yourself.”

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