Mood music is a necessity as the days shorten and turn into half-night. I’m not sure there’s a Toronto musician more an exegete of darkness than David Psutka, who produces mercurial, thoughtful club music as Egyptrixx for the British dance label Night Slugs. So Hiawatha, Psutka’s psych-rock partner project with Thrush Hermit’s Ian McGettigan, isn’t exactly the left turn genre nerds might suggest. The early tracks from Language, out September 25 on Last Gang Records, feel like finding your way in pitch black: they’re propulsive and strange, textural and synthetic – the soundtrack to long, macabre nights ahead.
