W-X - W-X (2015)

Tim Presley took his usually scratchy White Fence project to the studio last year on his Drag City debut For the Recently Found Innocent, but that doesn’t mean that the stranger impulses of that project — the fractured rap beats and pitch-warped experimentation — don’t have a home anymore. Now, Presley’s launched up a project called W-X whose self-titled debut is due November 6 on John Dwyer (of Thee Oh Sees)’s Castle Face Records.

The record sprawls out over 20 tracks, some fully formed fuzz-pop gems that could’ve been on White Fence albums proper (“Steer Clear”), but the defining headspace of W-X is more fractured and freaky. These are wonderfully malformed experiments that sound sorta like someone went around collecting castoff ideas from Captain Beefheart, Mark E. Smith, and Ariel Pink and let the tapes slowly melt in the sun. In its slimy soup of keyboard drones “Sacri-Face,” collaged art pop “Hermit Stomp (Simple Times),” and minute break beats (the three part “Trap Deal” suite), W-X represents Presley’s move back toward the wonderfully weird. The goofy grin suits him well.