As a reader, my eye was immediately drawn to the track “Without Books.” Fall is the reading season, and HAPEXZM‘s narrator contributes a lament over jazzy piano and languid trip-hop beats. Five string notes enter at the very end, all too short. A similarly melancholic nature can be heard on “All Gone,” in which a different narrator emerges from a shelter to find that all else has been destroyed. “Sadness” makes the emotional connection explicit; “Skeleton” adds a supernatural tinge. The shortest of these pieces are labeled skits, but even the longest tops out at 3:33. That’s why it’s a very good thing that HEXES includes uninterrupted mixes of each side; this is how the set is meant to be heard, although if one is making a mix tape at home, one will appreciate the fade-outs that allow each individual piece to be extracted.
The low tempos and laid-back nature of the project recall the golden age of sample-based music. The artist name-checks DJ Shadow, but the album really does bring back memories of that artist’s early excursions. The difference is in the consistency of mood. When embedded in the mix, the sentence “We asked if others were coming, then I said no,” mixed into “Blood Control,” becomes a shadow of foreboding, only slightly undercut by the finger snaps. “Tunnel” raises the tempo a bit, but continues to sound forlorn, especially when the train and saxophone enter: loneliness in the midst of funk.
Tiny changes are evident in the two versions: curiously, the unmixed version of “Glimmer” ends with a cassette click that alerts one to the need of flipping the tape. In the mixed version, there’s one more wobbly string note at the end of “Without Books,” which allows the transition to occur more smoothly. “Skeleton” in context is a bit less scary when folded into the vocal “Waste,” the spectral moans almost like a song. It’s up to the 28-second “No” to restore the melancholic mood, which carries through the end of the tape. The sun is setting earlier, and the darkness – external and internal – is settling in. But wait ~ HEXES also contains an alternate ending, 25 ebullient seconds at the end of the Side B mix that are not heard at the end of “Tender.” For all of the preceding darkness, there’s still room for a little light to enter in. (Richard Allen)
