CRUSH

  1. CRUSH 1:51
Released August 30, 2019 on Hausu
Jack Corrigan's first solo release of the year is a chaotic banger; like the Backstreet Boys jumping on a Project Pat tune, crooning "let me be your crush" amidst the violence, the song draws a heavy influence from Dirty South hip-hop and radio pop, assembled in a home studio with analog synths in hand, 808s blaring and vocals distorted and processed and layered so that the words drown out and become pure rhythm.

Yet for all its sonic excess, CRUSH is also inspired by the brevity of modern hip-hop and pop, fizzling to closure before it ever hits the two minute mark. Peering through the thunder reveals a carefully-mixed, minimalist core pushing the enormous sound of the track, taking notes from Yeezus or the screwed-up maximalism of JPEGMAFIA.

And you can be mistaken for thinking Corrigan's debut rap verse exists somewhere amidst the static. "That's my cousin Stuntt Mane from Sligo" he informed me holding a Polaroid of himself with a man wearing a ski mask. That's as much as I'm allowed to say here.

With influences between Blood Orange, K-Rino, Demon Queen and Solange, CRUSH is a melting pot, but it's also the beginning of a new era for Actualacid - his second project Boredoms 400 is approaching completion; "a mixtape or maybe album", aiming for the same dizzying highs as its single.

Actualacid has revealed itself as a wildcard for Hausu - his debut Boredoms 500 an excursion into psychedelic rock opens into a wall of guitars. His 2018 single Apollo showcases his range as a songwriter; starting out delicate, then suddenly hurtling skyward. His remix for Ghostking is Dead's Burn Out rearranges matter around the song's bassline, creating something that lands somewhere in the space between Nicolas Jaar and dub techno.

His live show has been turning heads too, at nights organised by Hausu and Sunshine Cult Records - these millions of ideas assembled seamlessly leaving breathing room for improvisation - with live-coded, generative, reactive visuals assembled on stage by the rat who made this website. A screengrab from this live show forms the base of the single's recursive artwork.