The Beatdown – The Beatdown Meets Hugo Mudie

If the names Alex Giguere and Hugo Mudie mean anything to you, then you’re more than likely Canadian and fairly familiar with various facets of the Montreal music underground.  More specifically, you’ve grooved to the reggae beats of One Night Band and The Beatdown and rocked out to the slurred punked up ruckus of The Sainte Catherines, Yesterday’s Ring and Powernap.  Mudie and Giguere’s prolific contributions to their respective scenes bare the markings of passionate, fruitful careers that could easily sustain themselves for years to come.  

But when both forces collided one fateful night at the Salsa Rosa club, more than pleasantries were exchanged when Mudie and Giguere and his crew learned of a mutual appreciation of one another that would soon blossomed into more than just talk.  Before long both were collaborating in the studio, with Hugo laying down his raspy style over a backdrop of sunset lounging 2-tone reggae.  The result is the historic eleven song document: The Beatdown Meets Hugo Mudie.  

Always paying homage to those before them, The Beatdown offers up instrumental track upon track of chilled out, down to earth reggae thumping.  Each song plays out in a mock-analogue style enhanced by a fuzzy haze of quavering organs, lazy upstrokes and shoreside steel drums.  Mudie’s boxcar-flavoured harmonica serves as a welcome addition to the many layers of those like “Sailing The Sea.”  Likewise, for a frontman known for his blunt energy, he aptly aligns his vocal rasp to the album’s casual flowing, multi-instrumental beats.  Take how his low flying mumbles crawl along in harmony with the murky, intimate hummer, “The Night I Searched For You.”  It’s a distinct delivery that defines The Beatdown Meets Hugo Mudie as the dirtier cousin of Stomp Records stock like The Skinny and The Aggrolites.  

While the album tends to favour a really strung-out, drawn-along tempo, there’s a remarkable amount of substance justifying this experiment beyond novelty.  For instance, a track like “South Central Represent” plods along to lumbering percussive elements under a dark sonic veil until a faintly glimmering chorus opens with the wounded lyrics “I fall in a hopeless city, Montreal’s bleeding.”  Meanwhile, happier times come rooted in the upstroke heavy, melody propelled “None Of The Above,” while Hugo flexes his punk muscles in “I’m The War’s” gravelly, Leatherface-esque performance.  But perhaps one of the coolest and most entertaining oddities is the sub two-minute organ grooving flow of late album intermission “Eeboo.”  It’s like something taken out straight out of the 60’s and features one of the most eccentric vocal tangents by a staggering, laughing and unpredictable show host announcing that “Hugo meets The Beatdown,” to which he follows with a whimsical and erratic bout of maniacal laughter.  Oddly enough, it quickly becomes one of the most addictive stick-in-your-head grooves on the album.

The Beatdown Meets Hugo Mudie is a strange and somewhat indulgent beast.  At times it feels like crashing a jam session between Montreal legends, and during others like a peculiar peek into the analogue past.  Even if it never happens again, this likely one-time collaboration achieves a distinctly “Montreal” sound that truly reflects a diverse scene.  While not overly prfound, The Beatdown Meets Hugo Mudie is a well crafted obscurity that proves not only that these two powerhouses play well with others, but that Giguere and Mudie’s talents extend well beyond their usual stomping grounds.  Your curiosity shall be rewarded.