More good news for the week with the analogue master Dave Henson aka Nochexxx aka CHXFX unexpectedly dropping a super-limited, single-plate, double long-player on to us. Six-months on from Thrusters – his incredible debut full-length as Nochexxx – Henson revises the ever-good CHXFX alias, releasing on wax under it for the first time.
As one of the modern-day analog masters, the four previous CHXFX releases have set a high-standard for beatless synth driven explorations. The workings are usually identified by short-segments of squelching acid and synth lines, always direct and to the point, and leaving you slightly on edge after listening, pushing your flow of audio consciousness constantly.
Dropping officially tomorrow, the new record on Polytechnic Youth is forty minutes across two sides, with each side dubbed it’s own album, reflected in new approaches from the man behind the machines. ‘Guided Busways’ is pure CHXFX, with over a dozen separate movements of stabbing sci-fi electronics bouncing off one another while the more established key synths give it some undertoning structure.
Flip it over and you’ve got the seventeen minute track ‘Undercroft’, which is CHXFX as we’ve never heard. Using sounds taken from the legendary skate centre underneath London’s Southbank, the end production is a building and evolving journey, building and dropping, twisting like the skate lines it started with. Don’t get the wrong idea though, there’s no filed-recording styles to the final product, manipulated beyond recognition, but still retaining an organicness to it’s vibe. Even at it’s full-length. ‘Undercroft’ leaves us wanting more, w’d love to see the CHFX live show as one fluid piece.
A real testament to the producer here that the sides are so different but equally effective and stamped with his signature all over.
‘Guided Busways / Undercroft’ is just the second-release on the Polytechnic Youth label, a label that’s piqued our interest due to their loving philosophy of pushing records. As well as the indie attitude of label and artists making their own sleeves and doing their own videos, they’re also taking on their own distribution exclusively through their own Facebook page.
Release info below, tracks just underneath that. Limited to 100 copies, grab this quick while you can.
via Polytechnic Youth
After a stunning run of electronic music deviancy for esteemed underground labels such as Werk, RAMP, Further and Feral Tapes, CHXFX returns with GUIDED BUSWAYS / UNDERCROFT. Released on Polytechnic Youth.
Pressed on one vinyl LP” (ltd to 100 copies) with two front covers designed by Maxim Lucas, GUIDED BUSWAYS features 14 short pieces, sounding like a discarded Radiophonic Workshop reel.
The UNDERCROFT side treats skate field recordings taken directly from Southbank’s Undercroft (the world oldest skate spot) and feeds them alongside coldwave synth stabs that pummel through dystopic brutalist concrete structures at speed, whilst renegade EBM soldiers jaded by arts council establishments tear shit up.
This record was made in full support of the Long Live Southbank campaign.