Bleep

The press release for XNX’s new LP Farewell states that this is ‘the album that he would like to be remembered by’. Coming from a producer who has already released the hugely impressive experimental ambient albums Music For Spas and Soundtrack For A Life Unexpected, this is quite a claim. Nevertheless, Farewell certainly has the scope, scale and emotional weight to become XNX’s most beloved work.

Much like those aforementioned records, Farewell takes us on a journey through a low-lit sonic netherworld, one where dark ambiences rub up against the hissing, humid soundscapes of Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement. Sometimes the pads and drones pare back to create a sort of reserved, mournful take on bvdub’s washes of sound, but at other points - ‘Eye Of The Beholder’, ‘The Wormhole’ - the textures coagulate into thronged hums that sounds like William Basinski’s music as recreated by extraterrestrials.

Much of Farewell drifts through this shadowy sonic terrain, as if XNX is guiding the listener on a boat to Hades. However, there are points where the producer provides something more concrete - rhythmic loops anchor ‘In The Click Of Time’ and ‘Reality Check’ while the etherised vocals on the album’s title-track recall Grouper. Then there’s ‘wannabeyourswannabemine’, a track in which a spoken word incantation, a greyscale synthetic fog and a soft drum pulse combine to chilling effect.

In his new LP Farewell, XNX has made a potentially career-defining set of dark ambient music.