- The London producer makes modern-day folktronica on this wistful and sometimes escapist LP.
- There's a claustrophobia and paranoia to city life that never entirely goes away. Oscar Khan, also known as Oxhy, has a knack for channelling this energy into gothic sound experiments. He's the founder of London collective XQUISITE and a frequent collaborator with the likes of Yves Tumor and Felix Lee. His new LP, Woodland Dance, rejects artificial sounds, taking natural elements and carving them into dense tapestries that alternately evoke utopias and dystopias.
Woodland Dance makes it easy to pin imagery to sound, as it's all so rich with organic elements. The mood of each track changes entirely depending on which layer of instrumentation you pay attention to. It's an atmosphere that's both haunting and angelic, like a bad trip that changes you for the better. On "Serum" the leads whine and unfurl into a labyrinth of hissing noise, creating a sonic mirage that could be rushing water—but could also be a swarm of insects buzzing in the night. "Mima" warps and awkwardly pitches vocal samples until they sound like the cries of lost souls looking for bodies to inhabit.
Woodland Dance's more beat-driven tracks have an Arca-esque stagger and unpredictability to them—off-kilter, but with a confidence that makes it feel like it's you, and not the percussion, who isn't keeping up. The wobbly beat of "Claps" is the perfect venue for rapper Daemon to show off his lyrical chops. The vulnerable and contemplative verses make for the most accessible track on here, with lines like "It's a lonely road, I'm a lonely rider" in line with Oxhy's vision of the city. "Flaka" is cut from the same cloth, with hand claps, primal chants and makeshift drums stirred into a whirlwind of percussion that does justice to the album's title.
There's escape from the chaos on the closer, "A Song For You While I Sleep," but even as you come up for air, distant metallic roars make you feel like you're still deep in hostile territory. It's an amazing outro that paints the city as something eternal and indifferent to arbitrary labels like good or bad. In the same way, Oxhy's music exists in the space between pessimism and optimism. The unsettling realism that permeates Woodland Dance sounds inevitable instead of emotional. Oxhy has taken off the rose-coloured lenses and taken a real look at life in the capital.
Tracklist01. Outside
02. Cannot See
03. Scratches
04. Distorted Voices feat. Thoom
05. Guitars
06. Balcony
07. Claps feat. Dæmon
08. Mima feat. Cecilia
09. Serum feat. Felix Lee
10. Flaka
11. A Song For You While I Sleep