ALBUM REVIEW: Microcorps – Xmit

Alter

Released: 16.04.21

Be it in his solo work, his collaborations (most notably as one half of avant-pop maestros Grumbling Fur) or in his extensive second career in visual art and graphic novels, Alexander Tucker has remained admirably avoidant of easy categorisation.

In his latest incarnation as Microcorps, Tucker pulls at the juxtapositions and connections of the organic and synthesised, with debut album Xmit revelling in busy, disorientating soundscapes that envisage forms of post-singularity dance music. That the Gazelle Twin featuring lead track Xem draws influence from the original Alien makes too much sense: Xmit’s unsettling, perversely enthralling world is such that comparison with H.R. Geiger’s biomechanical art is almost unavoidable. There’s an impish humour behind the ominous electronics, but Xmit demands that the listener meet it on its own terms.