After an absolutely massive run of co-productions for everyone from LSDXOXO to Ty Dolla $ign to Kungs to Keinemusik to Nine Inch Nails (including the near-entirety of the Tron: Ares soundtrack, in between joining their world tour), BOYS NOIZE deserved some “alone time.” The result is HYYTUP / Sh5b0mbe, a pair of utterly explosive club bangers and a reminder that his success did not come from compromise, but its opposite.
HYYTUP / Sh5b0mbe is the first release of the year on ONES and ZEROS [OAZ], the label BOYS NOIZE launched in early 2025 with a 22 track compilation and a few new originals, one of which now has a viral TikTok dance. OAZ largely focuses on the young, international producers revitalizing techno by shattering its rules, and “HYYTUP” finds Boys Noize defying upwardly trending tempos at a stomping-and-punching 107 BPM. Dark, detuned portamento buzzsaws foreshadow what’s coming, and tension rises with the cinematic textures of a modern psychedelic horror. The drop is thick, visceral, a wall of sound achieved with few elements, the bassline growling with distorted harmonics. “HYYTUP” might remind one of a certain idiom from the 2010’s, but BOYS NOIZE’s novel, hallucinatory sonics and ghosts-over-radio Memphis samples push it solidly into the future. Pulse quickens from the very beginning, but the adrenaline rush hits when the live hi-hats arrive to ride complex switch-ups of rhythm and bass patterns. By the time the second drop is announced with a siren, the dancefloor throbs with violent jouissance.
“Sh5b0mbe” accelerates to 134.4 BPM while remaining just as full of analogue menace, now fueled by a 1/16th note square-wave arpeggio. Here, Boys Noize works at an intersection of EBM, acid, and industrial techno reminiscent of harder turn-of-the-century International Deejay Gigolo Records. Like that era, our own is charged with looming apocalypse, and the sound resonates with the moment. Kicks pummel the gut, snares snap and slap, and hi-hats rattle and hiss over a twisting and morphing bassline. During the mid-track breakdown, ominously discrete atmospheres amplify the sense of doom. After BOYS NOIZE subtly shifts the song’s key, “Sh5b0mbe” slams back in with wild modulations, achieving eschatological ecstasy.
HYYTUP / Sh5b0mbe presents two very different directions for the sound of 2026, and BOYS NOIZE is certain to deliver more. Techno may have shed the conventions accumulated over past decades, but new tropes always emerge. A perennial disruptor, BOYS NOIZE promises that, this year, anything goes and everything is possible. When it feels like the end is near, the most exhilarating option is to lean-in.
