Latest news with #DrainGang
Scoop
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Mechatok Releases New Single 'Virus Freestyle'
Mechatok - aka Timur Tokdemir - has subtly become a defining architect of today's underground experimental pop and rap. While touring globally, he's released a steady run of solo EPs and albums that have shaped a sound where emotional immediacy meets sleek, digital-age aesthetics, leaving a mark on a new generation of genre-defining artists like Drain Gang, Ecco2k, Yung Lean, Charli XCX, and Bala Club. 2025 is set to be the Munich-born artist's most ambitious year yet. He kicked things off with the euphoric single ' Addiction ', and now returns with ' Virus Freestyle ', a vibrant follow-up that channels his signature bouncy and experimental production into a track that spirals around an infectious vocal hook. It's the second offering in a new era of Mechatok's sonic world, which is starting to reveal itself, one that captures the mixed emotions of inner-city hedonism against the backdrop of internet-driven escapism and everyday routine. Talking about ' Virus Freestyle ', Mechatok says: ' I really just recorded this one as a single take on my favourite synth Virus TI Snow and listened to that loop for a couple of years. Actually finishing the track felt like collaging meaningful and totally random memories into some kind of neon melancholia flashback sequence.' Mechatok spent his teenage years in Munich studying classical guitar. During this time, he began exploring club culture on his trips to Berlin, which ultimately led him down a different path. Rather than pursuing a career in classical music, Tokdemir relocated to Berlin and released his first EP, See Thru which put him on the radar of the international electronic music scene. He began collaborating with Yung Lean and Palmistry and soon amassed a catalogue of euphoric, minimal pop nuggets. Not yet 21 at the time, Tokdemir toured the States, Asia, South America, and Europe and materialised his unique style on 2018's All My Time, released on Lorenzo Senni's Presto!? imprint to wide acclaim. In the years that followed, Mechatok continued to explore new angles on pop and electronica by putting out undeniably catchy collaborations with Bladee and Ecco2K, video-game soundtracks such as 2020's ' Defective Holiday ' and mixes that all make use of his unmistakable craftsmanship. At the end of 2021, he released a collaborative album with Bladee, followed by a remix album that featured Charli XCX, Evian Christ, and more. Having received praise from the likes of Pitchfork and Resident Advisor, fans can look forward to more experimental, boundary-pushing electro-pop from Mechatok throughout 2025.
The Guardian
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
2hollis: Star review – sounds like the internet and bound for stardom
2hollis looks like an avatar dreamed up in a K-pop factory: elven, almost CGI-generated. His fourth album, his first for a major, sounds like the internet: a pummelling mashup of hyperpop, post-Playboi Carti trap and tweaky club music also indebted to underground Swedes Drain Gang. Which is to say, the 21-year-old LA-raised singer-producer feels something like a male Charli xcx circa 2023 – a leftfield figure about to blow up on their own terms. That's the overriding theme of Star, with songs such as Flash, Cope and Tell Me dedicating swathes of the record to manifesting success and worrying about over-exposure; a curveball acoustic ballad (Eldest Child) boasts how someone's parents 'don't know anything about me'. There are reasons to be wary of Hollis Frazier-Herndon's charms: this pop mainstream-facing record is made up of the most obnoxious parts of loud genres; race cars zoom and big cats growl through the album's interstices (2hollis's 2022 debut was called White Tiger). But he has been SoundCloud-famous since his teen days as Drippysoup. His rise feels inevitable, and his production work includes ambient washes as well as dystopian bass; love songs abound, both banging (You, Burn, Nerve) and angsty (Girl).
