London’s perpetual prankster Mark Hex has once again hurled himself into the ring with a record that spits, seethes, and struts with unruly charm. Seven tracks, under fifteen minutes, yet the effect lingers like a brick lobbed through a stained-glass window. The cover itself sets the scene: Hex in Glasgow, perched on a hill overlooking the Tennent’s lager factory of his youth, and elsewhere, mugging beside an Essex road sign like Billy Bragg gone sideways…Bragg in a K Hole, as one wag crowned him.
The songs on his latest opus, UNIQUE RESULTS (NEW ADVENTURES IN LO-FI), arrive raw and hissing; like half-scribbled manifestos sneered through cracked megaphones. Culture vultures and nihilists alike are skewered in bursts of feedback and barbed hooks. It’s all quick flashes of rage and humour, stitched together in the same way a night in Slimelight might careen from floor-shaking techno to punk abandon. Hex knows the territory well; after all, he’s prowled those decks for years, keeping London’s underground wired and weird.
“This ain’t some Computerwelt 6 Music thang,” he proclaims. “It’s just my truth; you don’t need to tell me yours…a mass sludge of AI and pressing buttons has made everything sound the same. As the world has become smaller, so has what people will listen to (and how it’s been produced). I only know how to be me, and to paraphrase Neil Young: l keep fuckin’ up! A health professional once described my existence as producing UNIQUE RESULTS. Here some of them.”
Unique results indeed. The songs stomp with the truculence of The Fall’s Room to Live, the playful abrasion of Yoko Ono peering from hotel windows, the jagged DIY rattle of Daniel Johnston if he’d been armed with a four-track in Elephant & Castle. Pavement’s skewed slouch and Blur’s under-produced heartache echo faintly in the corners, while the Manics’ political spleen hovers overhead. Yet Hex is too restless to stay pinned to homage. He mutates influences into brief surges that feel more like overheard arguments in pub toilets than polished paeans.
The effect is almost documentary, like stumbling onto a street preacher, pint in hand, ranting against culture’s algorithmic collapse. Each song feels like an unedited broadcast, full of wit, bile, and brittle humanity. Hex might joke about being a mess, but out of that mess comes clarity: punk spirit refracted through cracked glass, laughter echoing through the wreckage. And in the end, that may be the most honest result of all.
Listen to UNIQUE RESULTS (NEW ADVENTURES IN LO-FI) below:
Catch Mark Hex live at these upcoming gigs:
- Oasis Wembley pre-parties Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th September: Greenman pub, Wembley, London
- Cure fan Meet Up- Saturday 27th September: New Cross Inn, New Cross, London
- Billy Bragg Book Launch- Saturday 25th October: Rough Trade East, London
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