[yasr_overall_rating]
A documentary that follows electronic musician Hot Sugar in his quest to capture, transform and extract meaning from the sounds and silences of every day life.
In “Hot Sugar’s Cold World,” the titular electronic musician makes a compelling case for how music is changing. This documentary follows the “modern-day Mozart” – Hot Sugar himself – as he attempts to pioneer what he sees as a musical revolution.
Nick Koenig, stage name “Hot Sugar,” is a musician the likes of which has not really been seen before. Early on in the film, Hot Sugar makes it clear that while he values instruments such as the piano or the guitar, he considers those items to be “novelties”. He points out how many of them were invented as a means of communication (such as the drum) or simply because they had the most audible sound. Instead, Hot Sugar uses everyday sounds to create his music. Some of the examples of sounds he finds particularly compelling include the sound of chewing Pop Rocks or a person vomiting alongside a honking taxi cab.
“Hot Sugar’s Cold World” follows the musician’s journey as he loses his girlfriend (hip-hop artist Kitty) and moves back to his childhood home of Paris, delving deeper and deeper into his work. I found Hot Sugar’s story to be a sad one. In some ways he seems to be stunted by his own brilliance, the way many geniuses before him have. He says early on in the film that recording sounds for his music is the only time he ever feels completely “in control,” and that it allows him to “hold the universe to his liking.” Hot Sugar is a man completely completely consumed by his work, and it becomes abundantly clear that he does not intend to let things like interpersonal relationships become obstacles on his way to greatness.
If all of this sounds compelling, that’s because it is – though the film does not do the greatest job of relating it to viewers. Hot Sugar proves to be a subject so single-minded about his work that he is often difficult for the average person to identify with. On top of that, the subject matter can get rather dry and dull at times. One can only listen to the intricacies of the importance of getting an audio recording of factory machinery for so long.
This film is for those who style themselves avant garde musicians, or for anyone with even a passing interest in musical theory. While Hot Sugar might not be the most easily relatable subject, it is difficult not to root for him and his quest to change the way we think about music. The colorful people who populate this documentary certainly make it worth a watch – I found Hot Sugar’s musician friends to be delightfully interesting, and they seem to represent an impressively wide spectrum of humanity. “Hot Sugar’s Cold World” will not blow you away because of who the subject is, but rather what the subject is: an entirely new way of creating and experiencing music, and one which might indeed be the face of our musical future.
In theaters and on iTunes November 6th
