HATENA - HANDZ Album Review

 

7.4/10

HATENA's newest release is a fantastically unique, and sometimes glitchy collection of tracks.

HANDZ is the newest release from future funk artist Hatena, who arrived on the scene in late 2018. They continued to make a name for themselves with the release "Parader" which received much acclaim and interest from the community. The track "Begin2touch" in particular currently has over 60,000 streams on Spotify, and that's a pretty big achievement for a vaporwave artist.

I personally became aware of Hatena from their phenomenal release "Dumbfounded" back in 2019, which was released under the name Bootlegbby. This release really left me feeling dumbfounded (please laugh) mainly from its stand-out production style. It wasn't afraid to pull the rug out from under you either, especially with tracks like "Crybymyside" which starts off with roaring, abrasive stuttering. It also had tons of danceable moments on it, such as "Guy", "Mybby", and many more.

I could talk about "Dumbfounded" for a long time since it is one of my personal favourite releases out of 2019, but that's not why we're here today.

2020 has been a pretty busy year for Hatena. From a split album with Wavestyle96 under the Bootlegbby alias, to another full-length titled "ILLTRA". Today we're reviewing his record "HANDZ" which was released in late October. And let me preface this by saying that if you were a fan of "Dumbfounded", like I was, you will definitely find something to love on this project.

The album kicks off with the song "DO U MIND??" which is definitely a great way to start off the record - this song is groovy, it's glitchy, and it's a definite personal favourite off the album for me. This track (and many others off the album) do a great job showcasing Hatena's unique production style. Looking into the original sample for this track, it sounds nothing like "DO U MIND??". It's completely transformative and really shows just what you can do with sampling in vaporwave.

Another great moment for me is the song directly after, "DRIVE". The way the vocal chops are handled on this track are phenomenal and are almost seamless (I see you're here again, dressed up to - dressed up to - ). The bassline is groovy and the drums are super hard-hitting.

We also have the "NOTATRIP" interlude track which is super hypnotic. It's still somewhat chaotic though, and honestly I might prefer it if the drums were toned down a little to let some of the softer elements of the sample shine.

The track "A11LINNN" is another favourite of mine. It features a great flip of "You're A Good Girl" by Lillo Thomas which is one of my favourite vaporwave samples of all-time, I wish people would use this one more. The sample flip is very creative, and the glitchy stuttering that starts around a minute in is great, too.

It's with this we get to what's by far my favourite track off the album. The extremely ambitious and danceable "NOTFAIR". This is the longest track off the album at just under 5 minutes and being perfectly honest, this is one of my favourite vaporwave tracks of 2020. The drums on this song, particularly the hi-hats and crashes are downright incredible, and the sample is catchy as hell. I can't get enough of this thing... it's just an amazing song.

This is about all I have to say about the tracklist - these were definitely the main stand-outs. Despite my high praise I do think there's some room for improvement, mainly when it comes down to the mixing. I briefly talked about this earlier when talking about the interlude track, but sometimes it feels like the samples don't get much breathing room in comparison to the drums, leading to them being drowned out. Hatena has stated that his music is inspired by the 2000-10s french touch scene, and he wants to make songs that sound "like they're straight out of a 2007 MySpace blog" (sourced from his Bandcamp bio).

If that is the sound he's going for, I think he's honestly done a great job at it! Some of the tracks off this thing definitely feel like sneaking a .mp3 player filled with your favourite music into school in the early 2000s, which is a good thing in my book. But in my opinion this aspect of it could be toned down.

Outside of these minor gripes, I still feel like "HANDZ" is a great listen, and if you're in the mood for something hard-hitting, I recommend giving it a try. There's less then 50 of the original tapes available on Bandcamp as of right now so if anything here sounds like something you'd like, give it a listen and maybe even buy a tape!

7.4/10

Fav Tracks: DO U MIND??, DRIVE, NOTATRIP (INTERLUDE), A11LINNN, NOTFAIR

Least Fav Tracks: I guess HRDDDD