Review - Xqui - Capitulate

Xqui - Capitulate (Wormhole World)

18 January 2019

CD / DL / Cassette


Review by Ioan.

By his own admission, Xqui emerged into a ‘no underground’ electronica scene in April 2018 with little to no coverage or listeners. However, with a persistent social media strategy and a highly prolific (and quality) output, Xqui has managed to amass over fifty released tracks, which include the EPs (Britannia, Kindness, Nocturne, Wyrmling, Heterogeneous, Dragonette, November) and various one off singles and remixes. Capitulate is the second full length release from Xqui after the critically acclaimed 2017 LP Dragon.

In the true sense of the D.I.Y. artist, Xqui uses a mobile phone to capture field recordings which are then manipulated via apps and combined with found sound clips to assemble his staggering array of tracks. This, combined with his highly productive work ethic has attracted attention from Louder than War, Fortitude Magazine, Bulletproof Socks and Neil Arthur (Blancmange).

Anyway, onto the latest full length release from Xqui and non of the experimentation and quality of past releases is lost across these new eleven tracks.

Opener, ‘Impotus’ is a collaboration between Xqui and West Walian electronic outfit Radio Europa.  It has an all encompassing sound with immediate immersion and a machine gun drumming midway through that soon drifts away. Disconcerting muffled vocals and what sounds like the heavy breathing of an entity battles with a throbbing beat. It’s discombobulating at best!

‘0208e’is a disturbing and unsettling electronica mix with the sampled voice of Ronald Reagan repeatedly quoting from the ‘High Flight’ poem by John Gillespie Magee Jr.

‘Cypriot (reverse logic #1)’ is the second collaboration seen on this release with slide guitarist Geiger von Müller. The pair use a snippet of acoustic guitar that is repeated until disperate sounds merge to produce another unsettling sound collage. The sample guitar comes and goes in the mix to produce a track that is as infectious as it’s jarring.

The Eno esque piece ‘Alienate‘ feels like it’s soundtracking a free fall through the thin blue line and borders on harsh noise as we enter the earth’s atmosphere. This is the LPs first standout track. Follow up ‘Epiphany’ has a mechanical industrial beat accompanied by choral singing and a guttural unearthly noise. It is metaphysical and primal in its execution and one can’t help wondering whether this is a celebration of clarity, or a crisis of faith. Either way, it’s deceptively catchy and yet another stand out track.

‘Bedtime’ has a monstrous, backwards running voice lurking in the background as spectral sounds and effects bring unease to what is essentially the aural accompaniment to a hideous nightmare. Bedtime?  I’d rather take my chances and stay awake. Haunting, and again, unsettling to the point of disturbing. This is Xqui fucking with our worst fears and damn well succeeding.

Follow up ‘Deathbed’ is surprisingly a lot easier on the ear with its tribal drumming and sampled vocals from Fifi Rong interspersed with the ambient and haunting sound work that Xqui does so well. And this melds perfectly into ‘Kismat’ which incorporates field music recordings (from an indian restaurant?) run backwards, combined with snatches of a telephone conversation and layers of texture and sound collage to produce one of Xqui’s more abstract pieces.

‘Tich is a full on glitchy soup from which disarray and confusion emerges. It has echoes of Aphex Twin and Squarepusher, yet feels a lot more accessible, less abstract? THE standout track on the LP. Penultimate track ‘Zeiglerville’ has more disturbing sounds with disembodied recordings of children talking, alongside a demonic monolith. This has to be one of the most disturbing tracks on this LP. It makes for uneasy listening, yet it shows Xqui’s ability to move the listener emotionally and let them inhabit spaces that he has created. And however much the listener may not want to be in (some of) these places, you have to hand it to Xqui for this disconcerting talent!    

Final track ‘Valley’ is full of disorder, chaos, stabbing blasts of noise and sound collages all set to a minimalist throbbing beat reminiscent of Throbbing Gristles’ ‘Hot on the Heels of Love’. It is a conceptually fitting finale to an audacious sounding LP.

Capitulate is a set of eleven tracks that hang together by a thread and have very little commonality or theme. But this is what I love about this album, and Xqui’s output so far. There are ideas that are fully rounded and seen through to the bitter end. Yet, there are other ideas that a thrown at the listener in a barrage of soundscapes, that may or may not make sense. But life rarely does, so who cares?

Nitzsche said “one must face chaos to give birth to a star”. I think this perfectly describes Xqui’s output so far. It is prolific, perturbing, anarchic, yet never predictable. Xqui paves his own chaotic way with originality and an output that has to be envied and admired. And this latest release is not an exception. The CD version of this LP is now sold out, but it is currently available as a run of limited edition cassettes. Download or buy it today. 






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