Sweatson Klank

Thomas Wilson performs as Sweatson Klank and has long stood as a central figure in the storied Los Angeles beat community. Earlier operating under the name Take, he began crafting gritty breakbeats in the final years of the 1990s by forming the hip-hop duo the Shinin' and issuing a broad catalog of atmospheric solo productions. He held a residency at the Sketchbook event series, an antecedent to the influential weekly Low End Theory, and collaborated with producers Ras G, Caural, and Daedelus while simultaneously building a parallel path as a film and television composer plus DJ and music supervisor for commercial gatherings. Following the 2010 abstract bass-driven album Only Mountain he retired the Take name and focused exclusively on solo output as Sweatson Klank, whose releases have spanned fluid blends of hip-hop, R&B, and IDM such as the 2013 album You, Me, Temporary and the meditative ambient selections on the 2021 Path of an Empath EP.

Wilson was born in Paris yet grew up in Topanga Canyon just beyond the Los Angeles boundary. His parents worked in entertainment, exposing him to diverse creative disciplines and music, with hip-hop exerting the strongest influence on his developing tastes. He relocated to Olympia, Washington for college and began DJing as Take One, teaming with friend Jamie Carrillo (aka DJ None) to form the Shinin'. Under Take One he issued the breakbeat LP Emergency Breaks on the indie rock powerhouse K Records in 1999, while the Shinin' delivered the EP Director's Cut, taped across Washington and California and spotlighting multiple rappers from both states' underground scenes, among them Dr. Oop and Bedroom Produksionz; K and Drunk Decibel Records jointly released that EP in 2000. Upon returning to Los Angeles and shortening his alias to Take, Wilson put out the 2003 EP Third Story of lush downtempo instrumentals on Seattle's Buttermilk Records, followed in 2004 by Pieces from the Puzzle and the two Colossal EPs later compiled onto a single CD. He joined Kutmah's short-lived yet pivotal Sketchbook club night devoted to instrumental hip-hop, an incubator for the celebrated Low End Theory that became the heart of the Los Angeles beat scene.

Wilson continued releasing EPs and the 2007 full-length Earthtones & Concrete while establishing himself in the entertainment field through film, television, and commercial scoring alongside DJ work and music supervision for product launches and corporate functions. Near the close of the 2000s he adopted the DJ alias Sweatson Klank and assembled mixes for Brainfeeder and Dublab. After a 2010 split EP with Matthewdavid issued under both of his monikers, Wilson concluded the Take chapter with the full-length Only Mountain, fusing neon funk and wonky hip-hop; Only Mountain: The Remixes appeared the next year featuring contributions from Shigeto, FaltyDL, and Om Unit. The Elevate Me EP arrived via Project: Mooncircle in 2012 ahead of the expansive 2013 triple-LP You, Me, Temporary, which included appearances by Vikter Duplaix, Illingsworth, and Deniro Farrar plus a disc of instrumentals.

In 2015 Wilson began teaching music production and mixing courses at the Los Angeles campus of Point Blank Music School. He joined the Friends of Friends label in 2017, issuing the EPs Then I Was Me and Like I Need You before the atmospheric 2018 album Fine Lines. The brighter Super Natural Delights surfaced in 2019, succeeded by the relaxed Good Days in 2020; the largely beatless ambient EP Path of an Empath emerged in 2021.