Huerco S (USA)
Huerco S. (Brian Leeds) was a well-known underground house producer of the 2010s, but he gradually moved away from club music to explore a higher form of experimental ambient music. Her debut album, 2013’s Colonial Patterns, featured a collection of grainy, lo-fi dance tunes. His next album, 2016’s For those of You Who Have Never (And Also those Who Have), ditched the rhythms but still featured crackling and distant rhythmic loops. Leeds founded the West Mineral Ltd. label and has released albums on several projects, including Pendant and Loidis. He returned to the name Huerco S. with 2022’s Plonk, an abstract work that turns to IDM and experimental hip-hop. Leeds was born in Kansas City and initially became interested in grindcore, metal before entering electronic music after discovering drum’n’bass and dubstep. After becoming fond of Detroit house and German minimal techno, he began making music in response to this sonic universe, taking the nickname of Huerco S. His abstract and unusual dance tracks are often characterized by smudged textures and irregular rhythms. , as well as traces of ambient synthesizers and mysterious samples. Following the 2012 EP No Jack for the Ukrainian label Wicked Bass, an untitled cassette appeared on Basic House’s experimental Opal Tapes label.
His acclaimed debut album, Colonial Patterns, appeared on Oneohtrix Point Never’s Software at the end of that summer. The EP A Verdigris Reader (simply credited to HS) was released by Proibito in 2014, followed by Railroad Blues in 2015. The label also released its second album, For those of You Who Have Never (And Also those Who Have) from 2016, a stunning excursion into ambient music that quickly became one of the most popular albums in the genre of the decade. Leeds founded West Mineral Ltd. in 2017 and the label has released records from his longtime friends and stage mates, such as Pontiac Streator and Exael, who share a similar vision for unconventional and ambient music. He also released a darker record called Make Me Know You Sweet under the name Pendant, as well as a more beaten EP like Loidis. He partecipated in the abstract techno groups Ghostride the Drift and Critical Amnesia, which each released a self-titled album on the xpq label?.
In 2022 he produced the Plonk album, full of intricate and out of the ordinary rhythms.