mukqs: slug net

Mukqs is Chicago-based producer Maxwell Allison, member of the free music trio Good Willsmith and co-founder of the wide-ranging experimental label Hausu Mountain. Mukqs tapes veer between styles and genres, often within the space of individual tracks, and span passages of manic sample mangling, industrial noise, and four-on-the-floor technoid beat workouts - all united under the umbrella of Allison’s strictly live, improvised performances with hardware drum machines and samplers. Slug Net centers Allison’s practice around two distinct types of spontaneous composition: fine-grain chopping/collaging of songs from the rock and metal traditions, and drum machine-focused electro-adjacent sessions that mutate with randomized looping strategies. If these two styles seem wildly divergent, Allison somehow makes them seem like complementary sides of the same coin. His sample collage pieces, stuffed to bursting with skewed guitar lines and finely diced drum patterns, unfold with a bizarre rhythmic logic of their own, tumbling onto themselves and latching into instances of momentary recursion as source materials are pumped through Allison’s stereo looper. While the beat tracks bounce over “traditional” drum tones and patches of airy FM synthesis, their structures constantly evolve as Allison steers his machines through unpredictable linear trajectories and dizzying looping architectures.