#14 - Ecco2k - "PXE"
#14 - Ecco2k - "PXE"
Don’t get me wrong, the rest of the EP is wonderful — especially the gleaming “In The Flesh.” But this intro is criminally underrated. Only a minute and a half long, the song flashes a constellation of miniature moments of sonic perfection. Each one is like a beam of light slashing across you, rippling into existence then vanishing after a second. A voice dissolving into mist; a shower of pixelated static; someone stammering out a moan; sublimely pitched beeps and boops.
It’s a lattice of sounds that works not despite but because of its textural disarray; it makes me feel like I’m ambling through a beautiful blizzard, where instead of snow I’m being hit in the face with streams of glitter.
An outsider who’s not tuned in to Ecco’s experimental impulses might find the track indulgent, half-baked or disorganized, but it’s the perfect opener to the rest of the songs on here. Hearing “PXE” feels like stepping through a shimmery tinsel door at a party or walking into a portal to the Distortion World — it welcomes you into Ecco’s universe and prepares your brain for the tantalizing aural attractions that follow, from the mangled guitars on “Jalouse” and surround-sound glitches of “No***'s Song” to the closer’s claustrophobic noise.
My favorite moment of “PXE” comes a minute through, when Ecco says “breathe life” and the soundscape pauses for a millisecond before a vivid, enveloping synth suddenly wraps around everything like an otherworldly duvet. As Ecco writes soon after in the gorgeously designed video for the EP, it’s the sound of coming “out of your shell” and walking into the light.
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The list:
#20 - aya - "what if i should fall asleep and slipp under" and "Emley lights us moor"
#19 - rrodney - Jersey club remix of Trippie Redd ft. Playboi Carti’s “Miss the Rage”
#18 - aghast - “thas wut i do” (prod. lungskull & wavebird)
#17 - Yves Tumor - “Secrecy Is Incredibly Important To The Both of Them”
#16 - kaystrueno - “PRETTY B!TCHES NEVA DIE”
#15 - kurtains - “spawn”