Cex: Oops, I Did It Again!

An angry mother chews out her hot-and-bothered daughter, taking inventory of blown couch springs and curiously sticky stains on the kitchen table, before finally screaming, "Who is that naked man cooking eggs in our kitchen, girl!" That man would be Cex, the self-styled pimp fantasist who has stormed the gates of "intelligent dance music" with arms drawn mostly from Harmony Korine movies and Aphex Twin's racy "Windowlicker" video. Mock rap skits, like the one from "Destination: Sexy" on Oops, I Did It Again!, comprise a smaller part of Cex's work than his reputation lets on. But the same kind of inspired attitude oozes all over his laptop-crunched instrumental tracks, which translate his verbal swagger into hyper-stylized thwacks and wet gurgles that wiggle and strut like little else in electronic music. In spite of its loaded name, Oops goes a long way in presenting Cex as a serious artist—or at least a semi-serious one whose comical digressions add up to more than just nihilistic fancy. Beneath song titles like "Florida (Is Shaped Like A Big Droopy Dick For A Reason)" lay uncommonly emotive glitchscapes that mix up the brooding iciness of Autechre with the giddy brashness of Aphex Twin. The album captures Cex at moody extremes, from doe-eyed folky sadness ("First For Wounds") to ambient contemplation ("I Said It Knowing Full Well I Had No Intention Of Doing It") to fist-pumping resistance ("Texas Menstruates"). A lot of IDM artists mine similar ground while talking up their debts to hip-hop and Miami bass music, but Cex outdoes them by actually backing up such claims. His penchant for gameful race-baiting would get pretty dicey if his subjects, mostly hip-hop excess and his own status as a wiry white kid from Baltimore, weren't so ripe for the poking. And, as evidenced by a weirdly reverential hymn to a fetishized "tar baby" that opens and closes the album, there's a lot more substance to Oops than might be expected from a guy best known for live shows that leave him freestyling in underwear and gold chains.