xphresh - xephon

Ben Bondy & Special Guest DJ debut their Xphresh collab for the maiden release on Experiences Ltd off-shoot 3XL. Why the new imprint? Why the new project name? You'd think the experimental-friendly universe of Experiences would be sufficient to house all manner of sonic deviations? Well whatever the reasoning (or politics), we're in territory both familiar to anyone au fait with the Experiences Ltd universe and also witnessing Bondy and Special Guest orientate themselves a bit more towards the dancefloor. The title track opener and immediate highlight finds them exploring the bookends of ambient, deep house and breakbeat, likely observed from the depths of a k hole. The whole thing is possessed of that same through-the-wall sound-bleed aesthetic, a dizzzying waltz through the corridor separating Room 1 and Room 2 (remember what that's like?). It's both dreamy and aggy in a hyperreal way, Bondy bringing that razor-blade-in-an-apple causcity that often makes his music so hard to hold, and ultimately, hard to place - it's neither future or past, a vaporous glimpse of a fragmented and saturated present.