Oxhy – outside

oxhy kneels on the muddy banks of a river, the hum of one thousand flies and the churn and squelch of the river’s mud thick and dense around his crouched form. Surrounded by the skeletal remnants of wooden posts and scrub, he cups his hands to wash himself in the filthy water, the sun glinting off its slow-moving flow. This is how we find the London-based artist on the opening track of his debut album, Woodland Dance. In comparison to the scorched-earth abrasions of 2017’s respite unoffered and his doom-laden turn on Yves Tumor’s Serpent Music, for Woodland Dance oxhy turns inward, opting for a looser, more intimate and reflective take on his experimental club variations. Describing this refined sound to AQNB as “new folk”, the album sees the artist zeroing in on more primitive musical forms, roughly stitching together field recordings, analogue instrumentation, evocative sound design and vocal contributions from Thoom, Dæmon, Cecilia and Felix Lee. “I see folk as anything that people are making a