Patrick Sexx “The Shadow That Took Shape”
20 Mar 2014 — Henry Schiller
If motion could speak its zone of discourse would be the acid-washed synth tones, emotionally evocative sampling techniques, and digital windscape of Patrick Sexx’s The Shadow That Took Shape. Not strictly speaking aligned to any one faction of post-dub, or dance, or of electronica, Patrick Sexx swerves through early digital-age influences to collect tempered, thoughtful beats and lay them with great deliberation and care under an orchestra of downtempo contemplation and exquisite electronic maneuverability.
The sort of bobble-headed undercurrents of London IDM like Mount Kimbie; long winded sprawls of predatory wire buzz are magnificently condensed into percussive bloops. Tracks like “My Father & I” straddle the line between wistful energy and pensive anguish. If Shadow isn’t exactly music for the club, it damn well better be playing on the seemingly endless elevator ride down you must take to get there.
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“Vape Villain” makes one mechanical lunge after the other, set to the warped, rapid drip of a vocal fricative. The track seems to form naturally out of the static that you get when headphones are plugged into the wrong input. “Infinity Interrupted”, on the other hand, cozies up into the funnel of your chest before shivering, shaking, seizing and sputtering between decomposed handclaps and the soft chirps of the gold coins that bounce of Mario’s hat.
“Axis”, which is the album’s spiritual centerpiece, links a minimal hip hop beat with hyperventilated effected vocals, luscious samples that sound like thorax maneuvers, and rapidly modulating drum skins. The track reminds me of Kendrick Lamar’s “Backseat Freestyle”, with the jangling, expansive percussion that loosely follows a melodic line through various rhythmic iterations.
All of the tracks here have a dismal, naturalistic feel underwriting the percussive tonal softness that represents the album’s electronic content. Shadow has a surprisingly introspective bent to it, often cascading off into slow boiling moments of dark reflection. A reflection, in digital process, on the brokenness and angst that lurks in the spiritual basement of every late night out and every ‘one last shot’. A send up to the lightheaded feelings of bliss that you know deep down is only possible because some painful existential itch is being overlooked. No matter how condensed, how opaque, how magnificent a shape the shadow takes, Sexx seems to insist that it will never have the substance you want it to. He sounds damn good proving it, too.
The Shadow That Took Shape is out now on Alpha Pup Records.
