Hate Shapes is Joseph Newman, a Kansas City based musician, producer and arranger. Newman's first introduction into music was through guitar. When he was 12 years old he bought his first guitar and began to learn songs by bands such as Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and The Who. Later in his learning he would be exposed to post-rock groups like Caspian and Godspeed You! Black Emperor which set a trend of inspiration in his musical endeavors for years to come. In March of 2014, Newman's instrumental/electronic group "Forrester" released their debut EP "Antithesis" which gained critical acclaim to the Lawrence/Kansas City music scene. After the group parted ways, Newman began experimenting with production and songwriting through production, thus Hate Shapes was created. The recording of "Mouthcrawler", Newman's debut LP took up the span of roughly a year. At first there was no central project in mind, rather the songs were written and recorded as singles until Newman started to piece them together as he accumulated more material. The project began to take form while Newman was living in Seattle for a summer. Once he moved back he put the wheels in motion to finalize the project, while reconnecting with Peter Anthony, head of Intelligent Sound, a record label that had been supporting Joseph early in his solo endeavors. Though he likes to keep the theme and concepts of "Mouthcrawler" open to interpretation, Newman sees the project as journey from wanderlust to contentedness both physically and emotionally. It is a journey toward stability, while still flirting with his unstable habits and finding a balance in between the two. The title of the project is a reference for Newman's insecurity about properly expressing emotions verbally the way in which he would want them to come off, thus music is an outlet which, though may not serve the same purpose, allows him a kind of relief. Joseph has already expressed his interest in the project following "Mouthcrawler" and plans to release singles shortly, as well as a remix tape featuring various artists affiliate with Intelligent Sound.