Sinjin Hawke's innovative club productions draw from the complex rhythms of grime, footwork, and contemporary rap as well as the fluidity and grandeur of classical music. His tracks often feature sophisticated, prismatic melodies and otherworldly vocal manipulations, meticulously sculpted into an energetic rush.
Hawke has collaborated with a wide range of artists, ranging from footwork and experimental club luminaries like
DJ Rashad and
DVA to major hip-hop and R&B stars such as
Kanye West and
Frank Ocean. Along with frequent collaborator
Zora Jones,
Hawke is the co-founder of audio-visual platform Fractal Fantasy, and the duo create interactive online installations which are as mind-bending as their music.
Hawke's long-in-the-making debut full-length,
First Opus, arrived in 2017, and his first collaborative release with
Jones, the futuristic club-pop EP
Vicious Circles, followed a year later.
Hawke was born Alan Stanley Soucy Brinsmead in New Jersey. His father is Duncan Brinsmead, a French horn player as well as an award-winning computer graphic designer.
Hawke sang and played a few instruments as a child, but he became enamored with hip-hop by his adolescence, and started making hip-hop beats using his father's orchestral sample library software by the time he was 14. He took a Music Technology course at McGill University in Montreal, and became a part of the city's club scene, eventually co-founding an event series titled Boomclap in 2009, drawing talents such as
DJ Rashad and
Lunice. After meeting
Zora Jones at a gig in Barcelona in 2010, he decided to move to the city the following year. His first EP, The Lights, was released by the Belgian label Pelican Fly near the end of 2011.
Hawke then developed a hardware-based live performance and toured throughout Europe, North America, and Asia. In 2013,
Hawke worked with
Three 6 Mafia MC
Gangsta Boo, producing the single "Yea Hoe." Also that year, he participated in the Red Bull Music Academy in New York, where he collaborated with hip-hop producer
Just Blaze on a song title "One."
By this point,
Hawke and
Jones had received accolades for their audio-visual collaborations under the online platform Fractal Fantasy (named after one of
Hawke's father's visionary animations from the 1980s). The 2015 compilation Visceral Minds collected audio from these pieces, including collaborations with
L-Vis 1990 and
DJ Taye.
Hawke also worked with the Chicago hip-hop crew Sicko Mobb on the single "How We Rock."
Hawke's work reached a wider audience when he collaborated with
Kanye West in 2016, co-producing
The Life of Pablo tracks "Wolves" and "Frank's Track" (with
Frank Ocean). The year 2017 saw the release of
Hawke's full-length debut,
First Opus, which concluded with "In Loving Memory," a tribute to the late
DJ Rashad. Additionally, Fractal Fantasy released Visceral Minds 2, an ambitious 20-track compilation that included numerous co-productions with
Jones, as well as artists including
Heavee,
Swing Ting, and
Canblaster.
Hawke and
Jones made their vinyl debut with the 2018 EP
Vicious Circles, their first release for
Planet Mu. ~ Paul Simpson