Artists are typically unique people who happen to vibrate from their unique perspective and HXV fills that definition perfectly, if not any other.
Hailing from Atlanta, Georgia, Daniel Pollard has been active in the music community since 2009. He first started making waves as HXV in 2012 after he caught the eye of Diplo. This quickly lead to his first official released mixtape titled We Off That and a career in dark electronic music.
Descent in the second installment of his EP series following the first release, Separation. HXV describes this continuation into the depth of darkness as, “…everything here is dark, brooding, and occasionally violent. Part industrial, dark-wave, techno, tech house.”
Descent has three tracks (‘Hell Mouth’, ‘Try Me’, and ‘No Exit From Darkness’ ft. ESSEX) all of which seem at home for Halloween, but then again its always a good time for dark electro. HXV cultivates the best eerie energy on ‘Hell Mouth’, whose title gives me serious flashbacks to Joss Whedan’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It has a lot of energy and shoutouts to the darker elements of hardcore techno with its smokey, high hat tempo and stalking-panther emotions.
On ‘Try Me’ the rhythm picks up and so do the dark-wave and tech house frequencies. HXV whips up images of vampire, warehouse raves and demonic dance floors to tempt all our little dark hearts with. This is the sound that bridges the gaps between industrial, house, and trap; it’s as if HXV’s performance is a demonstration of how these genres have shared roots that can only be seen in the cover of darkness.
All three tracks smolder and brim with undulating rawness, but also feel relaxing- it’s like spa music for goths or an outlet for whatever rage has built up after spending all day in a cubicle.
Check it out below.
