Charleston-based instrumental funk and soul duo Hot Mustard’s new single “Birdwatcher” is everything you’d want from a Hot Mustard track. It’s funky, it grooves, and, paired with its retro collage-style music video, it’s totally out there.
“I think there’s some intrigue to what we do because it’s unconventional,” said Hot Mustard’s guitarist, keyboardist and producer Jack Powell in an interview with Charleston City Paper.
“We’re not from the world with rules, you know?” added bassist Nick Carusos.
“Birdwatcher” takes you under its wing into a world of introspective grooves and blurred genre lines — one serving of Hot Mustard boasts flavors of The Meters, Thievery Corporation and ‘90s boom-bap hip-hop.
Carusos’ infectious sliding bassline on the track dances with Powell’s descending minor-key guitar licks, leading the listener deep into a sonic forest replete with mysterious synth swells and exclamation points of horns. The zig-zagging bass clarinet solo by guest sessionist Matt Bauder — whose playing credits include Arcade Fire and Father John Misty — is an integral part of the track’s jazz-tinged, spooky swagger.
“‘Birdwatcher’ showcases the jazz side of things, which is something we really wanted to highlight,” Carusos said. “A lot of our stuff is city-style beats, but this track has those bass clarinet and trumpet solos which brought it into the jazz realm.”
The music video, like all Hot Mustard’s music videos, was animated by Powell in his signature surrealist style. Under the creative moniker Opus Thimble, Powell makes found-image videos, pulling from public domain databases and photo-captured textures of everyday life. The results are whimsical, moving collages set to a soundtrack of Hot Mustard.
The video premiered at this year’s Rip City at the Movies event to a sold-out Terrace Theater. It’s a psych-funk odyssey of a birdwatcher who stumbles upon some shady business dealings between birds and cats deep in the woods. Powell and Carusos storyboarded the video together.
“It’s kind of a cautionary tale,” Powell said. “It’s about starting with something that you love to do and getting caught up and losing sight of it.”
Making the music has also been a collaborative, collage-like process from the start. While Powell and Carusos have played together since 2001, Hot Mustard arose as a Covid project in the spring of 2020. During lockdown, Powell began crafting compositions out of sessions he had recorded of Carusos on bass and drums, assembling tracks with a hip-hop production mindset.
When it came time to incorporate horns into the project, Powell sent the tracks to Brooklyn-based trumpeter and composer Jordan Mclean alongside trombonist Dave “Smoota” Smith. The tracks were then sent back to Charleston to be further produced by Powell in his Johns Island creative space, Opus Thimble Studios. And that’s been the workflow ever since, bringing together sounds across space and time.
“It’s assemblage,” Powell said of this creative process. “The way that I look at things has always been to look at existing things and find a purpose for them, a use for them, and fit things together like a puzzle. It’s creating a problem — and then solving it.”
Monster Season and beyond
The duo’s forthcoming third album Monster Season (slated to drop next spring) stays true to Hot Mustard’s assemblage-style production while amping up familiar tasting notes in new ways.
Powell and Carusos collaborated with musicians new to the Hot Mustard multiverse: in addition to Brooklyn-based bass clarinet soloist Bauder on “Birdwatcher,” they also worked with Charleston drummer Wes Powers of Sol Driven Train and The Reckoning, and Tampa-based drummer and beat-maker A.J. Hall, whose break beats can be heard most notably in the work of DJ/producer The Alchemist. Using live drums as opposed to sampled drums like their past two records was an essential part of crafting the Monster Season sound.
“I wanted this record to be real raw in its mix. It’s real punchy. I wanted to mix it like a hip-hop album,” Powell said. “There was a conscious effort to really smash the drums.”
The album’s origin story is also raw — and beautiful — in a different way. Powell shared he had quit drinking three months prior to recording Monster Season and needed to take some time away from the studio. When he came back, magic happened.
“Right when I went back into the studio, I had this clarity… It all came out super fast. That whole puzzle-solving process was way less arduous. It just flowed. In two weeks, everything was arranged. It was magical for me. For me, I can hear it. This is what healthy production sounds like. Monster Season particularly signifies a big change in my life.”
The release of “Birdwatcher” is only a taste of what Hot Mustard’s cooking up behind the scenes. Before the full album drops next year, we can expect a plateful of more singles and Opus Thimble music videos along the way, some Hot Mustard to tide us over during the wait for the main course.
Learn more on Instagram @hotmustardsound.
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