#neo image

Mood Hut devotees have always wondered about a curious hole in the label’s discography, for in 2014, the Vancouver crew moved from House of Door’s The Dolphin Hotel Affair Vol. 1 (MH005) to Jack J’s Looking Forward to You single (MH007), thus mysteriously skipping over MH006. An errant comment made on the Mood Hut Discogs page back in 2016 suggested that the release was indeed coming, but other than that, it has remained a giant question mark and with each passing year, seemed less and less likely to ever drop. Parallel to this, there was an unreleased yet certified Mood Hut classic floating around the internet…a zoner hip hop and haze house anthem that leaked via misplaced CD-Rs, circulated widely, and even made its way onto a Jayda G Boiler Room set. And given the amazing strength of the track, it was always hard to imagine how or why it never made its way to vinyl. Luckily in 2019, we’ve arrived at a convergence and now, the mysteries of MH006 and the hip hop house banger have finally been solved by the Just Off Wave / Open Mic Beat 12″.

The architects of “Just Off Wave” are Mood Hut mainstays C.Z. Wang and Neo Image, who years ago crafted a slice of buoyant club magic…minimal yet suffused with pop energy and cosmic ethereality, as pads waver and electro lasers fire above airy house beatscapes. Then pushing the song towards total earworm perfection are the sleepy-eyed raps, all stoner voices pitch-shifting and smooth lyricisms stoking peak-time party ecstasy, with everything flowing from Separated at Birth (a well known Canadian hip hop duo operating here under an alias). It’s truly remarkable, especially given that it was written over five years ago, and shows that even in their earliest days, the Mood Hut crew were swinging wide and soaring to impossible heights. And though “Just Off Wave” is itself worth the admission price, of course that’s not all, for there’s also “Open Mic Beat”….a freaky drum machine improv that, according to the label, "got its legs at early Mood Hut parties where it became a natural prompt, encouraging microphone-grabbing party guests to step up and freestyle.”

CZW and Neo Image - Just Off Wave / Open Mic Beat (Mood Hut, 2019) “Just Off Wave” comes to life on double time clicks, splashing rides, analog snares, and bouncy four-four kicks until time-morphing delay spirals wash the rhythms away, leaving angelic pads to sigh while sub-bass bubbles float the soul. A syrupy, stoned, and temporally slowed voice repeats “just off wave / just on wave” as the rhythms rush back in, now carried by jacking house bass and melodic tom-tom percolations. At some point, a synthesized diva screams from the void, sending shivers up the spine while Kraftwerk-ian electro lasers add touches of electro-magic to the hip house glide. As the beats drop away once again, a feminine voice begins her calming raps…all lyrical, heavy lidded, and flowing smoothly on echowaves. And once the beat drops back in, it’s all so heady and intoxicating, taking me back to 90s radio jams from TLC, Salt-N-Pepa, and Missy Elliot as I sing along: “wasn’t a party / more like a parade / we’re out here riding / I’m heavy and I’m paid” (that’s my best guess at least). Perhaps no better party starter has ever been written, with effervescent house rhythms riding hypnotically and the ethereal pads bathing the mix in layers of haunted sorrow as everyone jumps together, hands in the air, singing along to a zoned out west coast anthem. The rest of the track sees the two Separated at Birth members locked into a hypnotic call and response, with dopamine title chants alternating with laid back lyrical spells, and at some point even the feminine voice backs into delirious repetitions of “just on wave”. The virtual diva scream returns and breaks the mix down one last time, with the low down masculine voice now running through zany delay trails while surrounded by cloudform pads. And after one more turn of the spellbinding rap hypnotics, we end on a stretch of club heavy rhythmics.

Earth moving bass pulsations underly frenetic phaser hats and grooving snares in “Open Mic Beat,” with rimshots rocketing out of control and galactic oscillations spinning towards the stars. Roland cowbells fire in counterpoint as the rhythms pull in and out and house pads suck the air out of the mix, with everything chained to psychosonic drum sorcery and wigged out beat science. Kick drums are swathed in clouds of sub-bass sensuality and each hit causes the soul to vibrate at universal frequencies until zooming echo fx and feedback modulations wash it all away, setting up a moment of anticipation before the jaw-dropping rhythms return, now with deep house chords melting down from the sky. At certain moments, the mix reduces to soft cymbal tapping and clicking bass drums while ethereal melodies and LSD tracers zoom in and out of the stereo field. But we always return to the overwhelming beat cascades, all cracking claps backgrounding cymbals, snares, and rimshots as they dance through delirium patterns. Cowbells tickle the mind amidst extended stretches of abstract rhythmic militance, with the only transitions coming from heady cymbal switch-ups. Towards the end, the drums dispersing for another extended stretch of beatless ambiance wherein house pads sound sickly and weak while surrounding chaotic rimshot patterns. For a moment, it feels as if everything is about to vaporize and fade away, but eventually, the rhythmic psychedelia returns for one last section of hallucinogenic body magic. And each time I listen, my mind goes wild trying to imagine anyone freestyling to such a wigged out piece of machine drum sorcery…surely the kind of thing only attempted by the most courageous or faded amongst the Mood Hut partiers.