- Christian Andersen's newest slab'o'wax on Orca harbours his most reduced music yet. Take the vocal sample on "Squeeze"—it sounds positively deoxygenated, gasping for air with a sandpaper-hoarse throat that never gets a glimpse of relief, even as sickly synths coat the track's back half. "Squeeze" hops on the same distinct hat-heavy shuffle we've come to expect from XI, but this time there's not much else here—no shimmering cascades or strangled saxophones—so the divebomb basslines are even more visceral.
"Immunity" rides that same spiritual ascent as older tracks like "Atmospheric Pressure," the kind of thing that made me try to coin the term "space garage" back in the day. This time around, the low frequencies are tentative and careful, nudging the track along as its hissing drums traipse their way up a circular staircase of wrenching turns and precarious pauses. Again, there are hints at melody—synths that flicker float into earshot more as ghosts than tangible objects—but just like "Squeeze," it's a new level of sparsity for a producer who once sounded like he was juggling a million layers at once. It's not a bad move: these are easily some of the more addicting XI tracks yet, if not simply because it's hard not to listen to them on repeat to see how he does so much with so little.
Tracklist A Immunity
B Squeeze