Ex-Hyena deal in whiplash and whir. Boston’s duo of discontent, self-described peddlers of “dystopian dance,” splice serrated synths with off-kilter hip-hop grooves, pitching body music into a hall of cracked mirrors and flickering fluorescents. Their palette draws from disco’s bruised glitter, psych’s spiral-eyed wander, and the cold crunch of rusted machinery, all stitched together with sly syncopation and relentless pulse. Ex-Hyena do not build for ballrooms or brunch slots; their dance floor is a bunker…their light show, a malfunctioning exit sign blinking above a blacked-out crowd.
Their latest cut, the exhilarating Vanishing Edge, crashes onto the floor like a strobe-sick sermon, out now via Re:Mission Entertainment. Propelled by thick bass throb and coiled tension, the track barrels forward with mechanical grace, then stumbles into a Snowbeasts rework that swaps menace for murk. Adam Stilson of Decade Studios mixed and mastered the whole affair into something that feels like it crawled out of the sublevel of a forgotten discotheque. There is a Kraftwerkian charm to it, mixed with Bowie’s artistic sensibilities and the ferocity of a NIN experimental track, which really comes through in the remix.
Listen to Vanishing Edge below and order the single and remix here. (We really dig the Saul Bass-inspired cover by Ian Adams.)
This is the first glimpse of XX YOUR LOVE, the duo’s upcoming fourth full-length. Lust, longing, ritual, and ruin circle each other across the record’s spine. Vanishing Edge teeters on that line, twitching between neon climax and collapse.
Ex-Hyena has shared the stage with contemporaries such as Korine, Haunt Me, Traitrs, Blood Handsome, Harsh Symmetry, Komrads, and others.
Follow Ex-Hyena:
Or via: