Wonky
Bass · 2008 · 130 to 140 BPM · also known as Wonky Bass, Aquacrunk
The 2008 to 2010 label for deliberately unhinged beats: synths sliding off the grid, detuned basses, instrumental hip hop warped into video game colours. Glasgow, through Rustie and Hudson Mohawke, and Los Angeles, through Flying Lotus, answered each other across the ocean. The word has aged, but the sensibility won: half of modern pop now slides off the grid too, gondoled just enough to feel alive.
9 reference tracks
- Flying Lotus: GNG BNG (2008)
- Zomby: Spliff Dub (2008)
- Starkey: Gutter Music (2008)
- Hudson Mohawke: Fuse (2009)
- Joker: Digidesign (2009)
- Rustie: Ultra Thizz (2011)
- TNGHT: Serpent (2019)
- Flying Lotus: Black Gold (2021)
- Iglooghost: Sylph Fossil (2021)
At a glance
- Tempo: 130 to 140 BPM
- First appeared: around 2008
- Machines: Akai MPC, Ableton Live, Native Instruments Massive
- The sound: Synthés portamento hors grille, Basses détunées, MPC déquantifiée, Couleurs 8-bit et FM
- Labels: Warp Records, Hyperdub, Brainfeeder, LuckyMe
- Key artists: Rustie, Hudson Mohawke, Flying Lotus, Zomby, Joker (frange purple)
Producing Wonky
Tempos follow hip hop logic, 70 to 90 BPM or its double, 140 to 180, depending how you count. The rule is off grid: strip out quantization or apply a loose groove, then nudge hits further by hand, 15 to 40 milliseconds. Let the snare land late, the kick sometimes early, and the hats stagger, so the feel is drunk but still held by a constant pulse. Build the kick from an 808 placed on shifted spots, never quite on the grid, and the snare on two and four but late, layered with a rimshot or snap. Hats run in swung eighths or sixteenths with gaps and ghost notes. The bass is a detuned sub that slides, a sine in mono with long glide, overlapping notes so the portamento does the work, written in a minor pentatonic with bends.
The full production course, in French: tempo, drums, bass, sounds, arrangement, mix, plugins and machines, and a step by step start.
Frequently asked
What is Wonky?
The 2008 to 2010 label for deliberately unhinged beats: synths sliding off the grid, detuned basses, instrumental hip hop warped into video game colours. Glasgow, through Rustie and Hudson Mohawke, and Los Angeles, through Flying Lotus, answered each other across the ocean. The word has aged, but…
What tempo is Wonky played at?
Between 130 and 140 BPM.
Who are the key Wonky artists?
Rustie, Hudson Mohawke, Flying Lotus, Zomby, Joker (frange purple).
