Hot Sugar
Muscle Milk EP
Creative Control Communication
We’ll skip over the “how” of Nick Koenig’s “Hot Sugar” sound and stick to the effects it produces. Why? His website is more opaque than most; it’s a disease of today’s publicity machinations. Hot Sugar sounds like a lo-fi Blaxplotation soundtrack sampled and reassembled to make a Cole Porter musical number. Ticks and tocks and pipes clanging bounce along with a pop sensibility that Kraftwerk would abhor, the stringy sounds of toys and tin whistle Mellotrons go where The Chieftains dare not tread, and all nine of these 3:05 projects are almost but not quite Top 40 background music for that Made-for-TV Sci-Fi special you never complete for the public access channel. Loungy vocals permeate “Color Wars (featuring Aaron Earl Livingston)” even as quiet sounds clip low levels adding sonic overtones Les Paul would cut off his left arm to avoid. A funky video lurks over at Vimeo showing Mr. Sugar at work, piping electric guitars through thrift shop radios and beating out rhymes on an analog Telly. The Hot Sugar soundscape needs a suitable home and a better website, but you can download it for free. You gotta love his style, and his work flow looks more fun than any music lesson I’ve ever had.
Hot Sugar: http://hotsugar.biz • http://www.facebook.com/HotSugarWorld
