The dream of the ’90s is alive in “ThunderScan,” the latest video in Sinjin Hawke’s Fractal Fantasy series. Framed by the strobe-lit ribcage of an eerily dehumanized architectural space, a throbbing blob of mercury pulsates like a rave flyer come to life. But if the visuals bring to mind the low-bitrate CGI of early ’90s classics like this one, the music is anything but retro. A collaboration between Hawke and Qween Beat Productions‘ MikeQ, certified badass of the New York/New Jersey ballroom scene, “Thunderscan” is ruthlessly futuristic, with plastified and pitch-shifted vocals bleating beatifically against gargantuan horn stabs, skittering hi-hats, and glassy digital synths, all twisting like an Escherian staircase of builds and drops and neck-snapping switchbacks.
It’s just the latest ass-shaking brain-bender from the Barcelona-based Hawke, whose remix of Chicago ghetto-house vet DJ Funk’s “Three Fine Hoes” was No. 12 in SPIN’s 50 Best Dance Tracks of 2013.
