Stream: Mayer Hawthorne, ‘M.O.’

Kevin Bronson on January 27th, 2020

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Mayer Hawthorne (Photo by Janell Shirtcliff)

Mayer Hawthorne was a busy body in 2019. Besides releasing and touring behind “Tuxedo III,” the third album of his funk-soul project with producer Jake One, Hawthorne kept the spigot running on his solo work, releasing a stream of singles starting last summer with “The Game.” It marked the first song from his own label, Strange Sounds.

It’s not so strange (by now) that the Michigan-bred, L.A.-based singer-songwriter, born Andrew Cohen, continues to tap into the sounds of early soul and all the mushy emotions that music evokes. It’s been more than a decade since he released his debut album, longer still since he made his mark as a DJ known for unearthing overlooked or forgotten gems. (His “Hawthorne Radio” podcasts available on his Soundcloud page continue to amaze.)

Hawthorne’s new single “M.O.” (which premiered on his latest podcast and was released today) is another of those jams that could be from 1970 but isn’t. “It’s a trippy love song about the need to bury an old relationship before a new one can begin,” he says of the song, which was co-produced by Wayne Gordon and recorded on tape at Daptone Studios in Brooklyn.

Like many of the singles that preceded it (especially “The Game”), it feels like it should be released on pre-scratched vinyl. It’s yet another sign that Hawthorne hasn’t really changed his M.O., just restocked his ammo.

||| Stream: “M.O.”