Fax Gang’s hyper-compressed songs sound like murmurs transmitted from virtual reality. The multinational collective—currently made up of Philippines-based vocalist PK Shellboy and producers GLACIERbaby, maknaeslayer, and kimj—are known for bit-crushing Drain Gang-esque vocals and electronics into distorted masses of sound. Parannoul, meanwhile, is a pseudonymous South Korean artist who crafts fuzzy sketches using synthetic instruments like MIDI guitars. Within their insular worlds, each act explores feelings of insecurity and depression through different processes, yet both produce similarly raw music.
Fax Gang and Parannoul’s new collaborative album, Scattersun, bursts outward with messy energy. The way Parannoul’s heavy-lidded voice drifts above the sparkling keys of opener “Quiet” might resemble After the Magic, but the song’s movements are volatile and sharp, cresting in sudden explosions that mirror the artists’ anxious mindsets. Written and produced entirely over text, Scattersun is constantly cracking open, expelling static hiss, breakbeats, and stray metallic clangs from its airtight casing. Any space for quiet is often crammed with soundbites, like the rev of a motor or a screwball saxophone solo.
To match the blown-out landscape, Fax Gang explore alternatives to the flattened vocals of their previous work. On the twitchy stream of consciousness “Double Bind,” PK Shellboy switches between a partially bit-crushed effect and their unaltered voice, squeezing out enough dread to match the UK garage beat’s foreboding shuffle. Though outclassed by South Korean rapper Mudd the student’s verse on “Wrong Signal,” PK Shellboy’s wheezy rambling is more convincingly paranoid. Their unease sounds visceral: “Time keeps on passing with every day/Yet nothing gets better,” they gasp, voice tense and filled with trepidation.
Parannoul remains a characteristically demure presence, anchoring the record with faint keys and a hushed voice. His balmy verse on “Lullaby for a Memory” offers a reprieve from PK Shellboy’s anxiety about growing older, even as it’s pelted with harsh breakbeats. Only on “Soliloquy” does Parannoul’s voice rise to a full-throated scream, a forceful moment overshadowed by the surrounding noise. If PK Shellboy raves about turning into the devil, Parannoul sounds like just one resident of Hell.
The lure of Scattersun is its contrasting textures—twinkling riffs against dial-up static and explosive synths over hollowed-out drums. Occasionally, the many layers fuse into a monolith. The title track’s 10-minute span recalls “White Ceiling,” from Parannoul’s To See the Next Part of the Dream, but where that song laboriously built to catharsis, “Scattersun” stitches several ideas together, each demanding equal intensity. “Sometimes/I feel like I’m in a car crash/Nothing I can do to stop it,” PK Shellboy announces at the top. The track’s spontaneous turns from apocalyptic rave synths to gliding four-on-the-floor to condensed noise might replicate the vocalist’s turbulent moods, but those same abrupt changes can be draining to listen to. More dynamic than either artist’s work alone, Scattersun pushes them into the burning wreckage of reality, where everything feels brilliant yet overwhelming.
