On the ambitious Redux Trilogy, London-based project Coaxial delivers three distinct releases — Redux Media, Firemaniac, and Wittgenstein–Cronkite–Hellholes — designed for simultaneous analog playback. From motorik synth pulses to scorched tape-loop drones and corrosive cultural fragments, Benjamin J. Heal crafts a captivating audible journey that values recombination and collective resistance over algorithmic consumption.
Representing the trilogy’s first aperture, Redux Media embraces motorik pulses and looping sequences within a sound driven by analog synths. These minimalist structures deliberately drift out of alignment, using micro-errors and “coaxial” layering to create a hypnotic, unstable tension. “Onyxial” ventures forth on pulsing, danceable rhythms and colorful synths, complemented by a haunting airiness around mid-point. “Tryxxial” also intrigues, enveloping with a higher-pitched vibrancy that radiates like a sonar in search, and gradually accompanied by a warming textural pull. Elsewhere, “Hweyxial” succeeds with its spacey brightness and energetic immediacy.
The second aperture, Firemaniac serves as the collection’s heart, exchanging electronic patterns for a scorched, unending drone, playing as a durational study of sustain and combustion. By recirculating 2012 gong recordings through tape loops, the work accomplished a strong atmospheric entrancement. A thickly reverberating layer of sound becomes bolstered by a sense of ambient unease, whirring with industrial, nocturnal eeriness. The release is a ghostly, absorbing success that values repetition and subtle layering, rather than the more melodic clarity within Redux Media.
The Wittgenstein–Cronkite–Hellholes release concludes the trilogy as its most corrosive entry, hollowing out cultural fragments to explore the terminality of popular music. The third aperture in the trilogy weaves distorted broadcasts into a uniquely affecting language system. Inspired partly by the death of Brian Wilson, the sound acts as a “destabilising agent” that punctures the previous layers to induce semantic overload. Its sounds range from dreamy lushness to rhythmic-laden combustions. All three releases combine for an enthralling, inventive listening experience from Coaxial.
