Warpstr – “MOVE”

The opening production of “MOVE” have me hearing Michael Jackson. Not shamone Michael, but the sharp exhale, jacket pulled just below the shoulders, one tiny movement somehow carrying the authority of an entire choreography. Then there’s a little early Prince in there too, if Prince had somehow gotten trapped inside a primitive computer and started glitching his way out. I generally hate comparisons like these. Please understand them as extremely expensive compliments.

Warpstr is one of those producers whose résumé makes genre labels increasingly useless. Hip-hop production, PC Music adjacency, experimental club music, pop collaborators, hardware synth nerdiness. Look around at some of the company “MOVE” is currently keeping on playlists and you’ll find Sophia Stel, Brutalismus 3000, 2hollis, Slayyyter and Madeon. Nobody at this table seems particularly interested in ordering from one section of the menu.

Then I went looking for Warpstr himself and found... not much. His Instagram currently has two Reels. One teasing “MOVE.” One announcing that it's out. That's basically the tour. And I kind of love it. There was a time when we weren't granted continuous access to artists. You caught them onstage, found a photograph in a magazine, maybe saw an interview on television, and those glimpses carried more weight precisely because there weren't another seventeen waiting underneath them. I’m not campaigning for everyone to throw their phones into the ocean, but there’s something nice about Warpstr leaving a little negative space around himself.

Maybe “MOVE” is enough information for today. Press play. We'll learn the rest when he feels like telling us.