Intensely weird energies surround hex6, a reanimated and unbound artistic presence.
Global collective Saturnine Realms is a group to keep an eye on. Their expected professional exterior hides a wealth of enticing oddities and a bounty of strangeness. hex6 embraces this like no other. Their work involves gothic imagery, unnerving aesthetics, and the very aura of witchcraft. Each new track is bundled with cover art extrapolated from localised nightmares. Everything is eerie with impossible granularity and specificity. hex6’s work varies wildly in genre, from droning industrial ambience to liminal vaportrap, to rock, to electronic madness. It’s pretty wicked.
As fellow Saturnine member donxgady points out in the comments, “come with me” is like the “3am ghost under your bed”. The song, co-produced by allhailpain and hex6 is a fog of reverb and horrifying chimes that emerge into a brief morning of safety. “sleep tight” is less hopeful, a dark ambient drone that evokes the profoundly upsetting noise of The Caretaker’s “Everywhere at the end of Time”. It’s devoid of life, a glimpse into heat death. “the meeting” explores distress even further as sonic pleasantries are scuttled in an ocean of distorted ideation. Nothing in the world of hex6 is immortal, in fact much of her work is focused on degrading and, effectively killing, art; there’s true intensity in “blix, i love you” with wwiith, featuring kick drums that find an uncomfortable and destructive sickness. “Finding Heaven” with PENEMUE666 attempts to make sense of the unknowable. hex6 is barely understandable, relegated to shimmering frequencies as the aforementioned collaborator frees thunderous bass and glassy cymbals onto a field of dissonance.
hex6 and Finnish experimental artist Tuhkadus come together as Smothexred, a name that invites claustrophobic visions of helplessness and imminent danger. The industrial rock and electronic outfit has a small catalogue as of now, but their song “Black Moon” signals an incredible partnership between the two. The song frantically leaps between pulsing delays of screaming bass and energised guitar riffs, desperate drums ring out in spite of eachother, and everything in the mix scrapes and fights for a chance to reach the listener’s ear. It’s short of violent though, subdued by hex6’s soaring vocals. Lines like “Hold me tonight, the dark in full flight” paint bleakness with an intense chroma. Like a serpent these vocal lines loop around the song’s sonic branches, creeping, fangs bared, towards the audience. Smothexered’s other extant song, “A Witch is Born”, is less complex, but its music video is paralysing. Hex6 rises from a bathtub of blood, staring into the lens with a dominating, evil glare. There is no escaping the cultish cries that follow. There’s some suspension of disbelief needed, but the visuals are so unpredictable that most viewers will fall swiftly into this endless void.
The world hex6 crafts is one that flips our day to day ideas. Suffering becomes blessed. Emptiness becomes whole. Art becomes nothingness, and nothingness becomes art. There are few guiding principles within this discography, making hex6 a powerful and unruly artist. hex6 is worth following into the future – for all that’s clear about them, there’s so much more lurking in the shadows.
Follow hex6 on Twitter, Instagram, Soundcloud, and Bandcamp.
– Jamie (@youngjade1216)
108MICS 