Band: SphereX

Album: 1hr 11min 11sec

Album Year: 2007

Label: Self Released

Genre(s): Glitch-tech/IDM/Breakcore

Band Website: http://www.myspace.com/spherex

Rating: NA

I feel like what I received from SphereX here is more of a promotional package than an actual legitimate album. Not to discredit the music by any means, but the mp3s were all tagged with different album names and encoded at different bitrates… I simply can not view this material as a single entity but rather a collection that I can only imagine is a “best of” of sorts.

With that out of the way let me say that SphereX is definitely on to something here. It is quite obvious from the get go that this music has a certain sense of humor in its personality. The material is riddled with ridiculous vocal samples and some pretty impressive digital manipulation. Imagine downLOAD, Autechre and Otto von Schirach giving birth to a neglected and abused lovechild. That is SphereX. This music is all over the fucking place. Now, anyone have some cocaine to accompany this auditory insanity?

Random rhythmic loops are dissected and tweaked beyond recognition and yet somehow manage to create a coherent glitched out assault that is actually quite listenable. What impressed me the most about this material is the fact that it is quite diverse. Every track definitely has its own personality. SphereX executes a lot of new ideas in his material, and he does so amazingly well. The highlight for me would have to be “Abstraction” which has an excellent sense of direction, focus, and melody.

I know this artist performs live shows and I can only imagine how mindfuckingly intense the gigs could be. This is clearly music that should be enjoyed loud. Very very loud.

SphereX has released plenty of material for free via the Non Quality Audio net.label as well as on Soulseek. I highly recommend looking into not only the vast amounts of NQA artists but especially the work of SphereX.

- Jason

March 2007