Nochexxx has come some way in establishing himself in underground consciousness over the past few years, with well received releases on Werk Discs and a guest Radio 1 session for Mary Anne Hobbs. But while his earlier work relied on a frenetic fog of obscure sampling, his latest release sees him clear the decks and plug into leaner hardware for a queasy and hallucinatory vibe. “Savage Herald” shuffles to life with sparse modulating bass stabs joined by echo enriched claps and a muffled kick. A lone shriek, 8-bit squalls and a John Carpenter-esque arpeggio riff slowly unrolls before a brief breakdown marshals the disparate elements into a harder, techier groove. But while appropriating the austere sonic palate of vintage Chicago, Nochexxx bypasses an atmosphere of seedy hedonism in favor of a more sinister aural storyboard. There is a strange alchemy in this track, as there is in the best of Actress or Hype Williams — an unsettling sensation of some entity behind the sound weaving into your personal memory bank of pop culture detritus.
On the flip, “Charro” is an electro workout that brings a bank of crisp snares and hats to some prickly synth lines without relenting or standing still. Just as Boddika or Legowelt’s recent output has called to mind the functional joy and pure physicality of vintage Drexciya, so this has a sinewy drive that goes some way to balance the dank vibes of the A Side. While certainly not the most immediate tracks of Nochexxx’s catalog, these claustrophobic, understated and functional tracks deserves some serious listening time.
