On his first full-length album, Runner (artwork above), Denver’s Muta (a.k.a. Cliff Harris) draws inspiration from the ’70s science-fiction flick Logan’s Run, a tale of a young man who flees his dystopian home to avoid his scheduled termination. Now, we know Logan’s Run is a cult classic, but let’s be real for a moment. The music from the film is a distractingly trite melting pot of cliched futuristic noises and rudimentary synth sounds which, in reality, matches up well with the movie’s stilted acting and goofy special effects. Thankfully, since the film’s release in 1976, electronic-music production has come of age, and Muta uses various newfangled technologies to craft a nine-song album with a decidedly 21st-century aesthetic. “Lock Jaw” is a lurching, synthesizer-laden tune with a hip-hop feel that recalls the music of artists like Lazer Sword, but also uniquely employs sundry sci-fi sampling, including noises that easily could have been taken from conversing Star Wars droids.

Lock Jaw