WierdWired arrived this past June through Mahorka, a label that has built its identity on restless, boundary blurring electronic work, and Jawhinge uses that home well. The record is out now as a CD and in digital formats, and either way you take it in, it announces itself as a tightly sequenced eleven-track journey through IDM, drum and bass & jungle, and ambient textures, a single continuous mood that shifts shape as it goes along. It opens with a warning rather than a welcome:
“Post_soc” is less a song than a descent, all drone and metal scrape, deep kicks buried under static while a voice crackles through some unseen loudspeaker. It sets a tone that is dark, thick, and ominous, and it tells you plainly that this record has no interest in easing you in.
What follows is one of the more satisfying transformations early on a record I’ve heard in a while. “A_beat” starts with staggering, slow drums and a melody so soft and pleasant it almost feels misplaced, until the bass synth drops in deep and the drums begin to multiply, clicking, shuffling, halting, repeating, until you’re fully inside a proper IDM workout, the melody still glowing quietly at its center like something that refuses to be drowned out. That tension between tenderness and chaos becomes the record’s signature, and it only deepens from here.
“Smooth_teeth” takes that idea somewhere new, opening on panning, chopped vocal fragments from a female voice, joined by more voices layered into pads, before a chattering snare and deep kicks pull the whole thing into focus. The melody stays soft and ambient even as the low end and percussion commit fully to drum and bass. It’s a strange and wonderful pairing, gentle above, ferocious below, and it works completely. “246” comes along and pushes the same formula further, opening on analogue pads and slow, filtered chords before the drums arrive fast and chattering, somewhere between drum and bass and full IDM frenzy, the melodic material moving at its own unhurried pace against percussion hitting at what feels like 200 miles per hour. It shares its structure with the previous track but carries its own distinct character, and it’s genuinely excellent.
“B1hte_nabil” might be the boldest turn on the album. Dissonant, disconnected synth chords open the track, a man’s voice mutters somewhere in the background, and then the drum and bass hits, just as relentless as before, but the melodic writing here trades lush ambience for something closer to alien transmission, angular and unplaceable. A long mid track pause, drums dropping to half speed before snapping back to full tempo, is one of the record’s best sleight of hand moments. It’s a badass track, full stop.
“Always_worth_it” shifts gears into something more cinematic at first, slow and melodic with real emotional weight, before splitting open into a chaotic drill and bass assault while the original melody carries on underneath, unbothered by the storm around it. “Never_easy” offers a genuine breath, a short, drumless ambient piece built from backwards strings and reversed synth pads, functioning almost as an interlude before the album’s back half detonates.
“Sensorry” rides in on crisp breakbeats and growling, acid tinged bass before pivoting midway into an unexpected Afro Caribbean rhythm, a shift handled with real skill. “Resolve_reject” is a scorcher, angular basslines and bubbling synths giving way to hard, repeating kicks and overdriven bass before tipping fully into drill and bass overload. “Teledildonics” keeps the intensity high, fast drums and scattered IDM textures making it one of the most representative tracks of the album’s overall aesthetic. The record closes on “demodulated_alh”, a fully experimental piece of drones, metallic flourishes, and modulated digital voices that dissolves the album back into the cacophony it emerged from.
WierdWired is a record built on contrast: tender melody against violent rhythm, ambient calm against drill and bass fury, and Jawhinge navigates that contrast with real confidence throughout. It’s a dense, demanding listen, but one that pays off in spades and Mahorka has once again backed a record that earns its strangeness. Few albums this year sound quite this alive, making future output from Jawhinge a thing to watch out for.
WeirdWired by Jawhinge released 26 June, 2026 exclusively on Mahorka