aaamusic | On 11, Jan 2011

Over the past year, the enigmatic new LA label Hippos in Tanks has quietly and industriously set about becoming one of the most progressive, cutting edge new record labels around, responsible for some of the most exciting and critically lauded releases of 2010 from artists such as Games, Laurel Halo, D’Eon and White Car.

Occupying their very own, fascinatingly skewed universe, Hippos in Tanks have shown themselves to be true champions of the new vanguard of beautiful, genuinely exploratory music, with their artists all making their own unique, investigational inroads into modern genres. They were the first, for instance, to release the warped synth alchemy of Games, aka Oneohtrix Point Never’s Daniel Lopatin and Tigercity’s Joel Ford, with the limited edition debut single “Everything is Working”, following it up with the “That We Can Play” EP, as well as the hallucinatory future- pop of D’Eon, the gossamer-light glacial landscapes of Laurel Halo, the mesmerising White Car, and the fogged up/sexed up/drugged up hedonism of Von Haze, all to much acclaim, with these releases ending up in year-end lists from the likes of Pitchfork, Stereogum, FACT, Dummy and many others.

To fully flesh out this parallel dimension, Hippos in Tanks have also gone the extra step of curating some of the most innovative videos around right now as well, roping in the radical, emergent likes of Josef Kraska, Weirdcore and even Lopatin himself to create endlessly inventive, singularly surreal visions of beauty perfectly complementing the music. Collaboration-wise, Hippos in Tanks weave in and out of other similarly-minded artists and labels too, with people such as SALEM, Blondes, Hudson Mohawke and CREEP all remixing HIT releases this year.

2011 will see the label push the boat out even further, first with a ruckus in March with Autre Ne Veut, who caused a frenzy in 2010 with his eponymous debut album of brilliantly discombobulated R&B esoterica, and London’s own Hype Williams, whose experimentation with and deconstruction of hip-hop/ bebop structures has already been well-documented. Laurel Halo returns with a much anticipated EP of all-new material in April, and then in May, the much buzzed about Austin lovelies SLEEP ∞ OVER will release a full length of their dreamy “ghost n’ b” – imagine the sound of Beach House conducting a séance in an abandoned house and you are close. And in the summer, expect a split 12” project with D’Eon and Canadian artist Grimes – the sound of ominous beauty, personified. Add in other white hot artists still to be announced, and you can see why 2011 has already gotten off to an exciting start beginning with Hippos In Tanks. 

Coming Soon:

Autre Ne Veut – “Bodies” EP (March)

Hype Williams – LP (March)

Laurel Halo – EP (April)

SLEEP ∞ OVER – LP (May)

Grimes/ d’Eon – split 12” single (June)

Previous Releases:

Von Haze – Von Haze EP (12” vinyl)

Games – Everything is Working (7” single)

White Car – No Better (12” vinyl)

Games – That We Can Play (12” vinyl)

D’Eon – Palinopsia (12” vinyl)

Laurel Halo – King Felix EP (12” vinyl)