Recently, North Carolina producer Hanz shares the second track from his forthcoming EP, Plasty I, which is due out January 19th via Tri Angle Records. “King Speed” follows the track, “Page,” shared last month. Plasty I is the first of two EP releases, which will see an album’s worth of material released over two 12-inches. The second part will follow in Spring 2018 – details to be announced.

Hanz, otherwise known as North Carolina based producer Brandon Juhans, originally wanted to be an illustrator but fell upon music. Curious about how albums he liked were made, he found himself researching a multitude of wide-ranging genres and techniques. He wanted to make things that he would want to hear himself and was eventually able to make music that matched his illustration style, setting up entire scenes with sound. Taking on an unusually divergent range of musical influences, bringing together hip-hop, punk and experimental music.

The key influences for Hanz’s forthcoming long-overdue EP lie outside music – it is heavily influenced by film. Things like pacing, tension, comic relief and climactic moments are palpable throughout the EP, and through it’s follow-up, which is due to land later in 2018. Plasty I is the first of two recordings that form a kind of mirror shot of each other – you could say one is a frontal shot, while the other a back shot.

Both EPs developed in sessions that started right before the re-issue of Hanz’s LP, Reducer, on Tri Angle in 2015. Over a year or so of working, he decided to trim compositions down and get to the point in less than twenty minutes per EP. He named this work “Plasty” due to its constant structural changes.

Hanz’s music contains tension and action. He edits his music like a movie, placing pieces of a song inside other songs: certain parts and melodies from part one reappear in part two and vice versa.