Zach Hodges Bottled an Atomic Glitch in Jazz Fusion Form in ‘Nuclear Muskrat’

Zach Hodges let chaos reign in Nuclear Muskrat and conducted it with a conductor’s cultivated touch and a mad scientist’s curiosity. The 19-year-old Midlands-based musician, composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist may be early in his career, but through his LP, Baby Landmark, he’s already proven that genre loyalty is a concept best left in the past. Hodges, known for his work as a theatre musical director for String Cheese Theatre, his position behind the kit in Midlands jazz trio Head to Head, and his international touring experience, funnelled every inch of his multidisciplinary pedigree into this 7-minute experimental tour de force. Nuclear Muskrat isn’t content to sit still—within its frenetic framework, it flexes polka funk motifs, indietronica laced with avant-garde effects, funked-up disco grooves, blues-drenched riffs, erratic polyphonic keys, and incendiary synth bursts. While it could have been easy for this to feel like a pure act of self-indulgence, it’s easy to go along with the ride with Hodges as he demonstrates the malleability of sound in a way so seamless it is as though all of the textures, tones and tempos have always been complementary pairings. It’s as though the contemporary history of music has been condensed in the explorative […]

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