by David Wilikofsky
Perhaps the only analog thing about musical collective Fax Gang is their name. Spread across multiple continents, the group met via their shared musical tastes on Rate Your Music and further connected on private Discord servers. Although the group is often associated with online microgenres like surge or hexD, their music pulls from a variety of influences to defy easy categorization. Their sophomore effort, Dataprism, is some of the most straightforward pop music the group has produced to date; it’s also some of their best work.
The best place to start discussing Fax Gang is with bitcrushing. The technique involves reducing the resolution of digital audio data to create distortion, and it’s what produces Fax Gang’s signature sound. Their songs exist in a terminal state of digital decay, vocals and production alike fraying at the edges until they blur into a flickering sonic image. Though Dataprism bears the marks of bitcrushing, it sees the group pull back a bit; where its predecessor Aethernet bitcrushed so aggressively that entire tracks seemed to melt together, here the group allows each part to breathe. Robotic harmonies soar above fractured beats, at once abrasive, etherial and transfixing.
Etherial may be the key word here; this is the most beautiful the group has ever sounded. The twinkling synths of “Sparks” wouldn’t feel out of place on a Drain Gang production. “Flood” is some of the most spacious and spare music of their career, warbling vocals soaring over gently buzzing synths. Closer “Four Walls” features Korean bedroom-pop savant Parannoul, who contributes to the track’s production and writing. Parannoul’s music thrives on dynamic tension, tracks slowly building and exploding towards climaxes; here a plaintive piano melody explodes into signature Fax Gang distortion, a surprisingly delicate moment of catharsis.
Some might wonder why the group hides behind obfuscation; Dataprism is clearly an album of stunning pop songs beneath its layers of distortion, ones that could easily stand up without the effects. I think the answer can be found in the title itself. Fax Gang are the product of the digital era, and they’re acutely aware of its lingua franca. Their music lays bare the fact that underneath nearly everything in our world are zeros and ones, each one a fragile bit that can easily be corrupted by a simple flip. We live in the dataprism each data, endlessly browsing and scrolling ourselves into oblivion, but rarely does it feel or sound as good as this album.