Search - Cex :: Actual Fucking

The hardest working man in showbiz

David M. Madden | salt lake, utah United States | 11/11/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"From IDM wiz kid to aluminum fronts, MC to glitchy, pensive emo-folkster to harbinger of industrial fusion, Rjyan "Cex" Kidwell approaches each album as if it's his first and last - a potentially career-crushing move if Kidwell wasn't such a capable, clever Bowie-esque chameleon who manages to more or less pull off whatever it is he attempts. With help from members of Joan of Arc and Dismemberment Plan, Kidwell rocks through his most disparate release to date. On the opener, "Baltimore," the band employs an enormous variety of organic percussion and moody atmospherics alongside even moodier voices (Kidwell's and former Milemarker chanteuse, Roby Newton aka Kidwell's wife), finally climaxing with a cut-and-pasted Frankenstein solo of wilting DSP. On the contrary, the softer "Ybor City" splits from a fevered rest-stop voicemail to a melancholy, Microphones-like, four-dollar acoustic guitar duo. A mix of Giorgio Moroder disco and Talking Heads pop fills up the 6:39 second "Angeles". Yet again, another head-scratching chapter in the saga of Cex, one - as always - deftly skewed and genuinely brilliant."