HexD

HexD is an Internet microgenre of electronic music and style of audio mixing that emerged in the late 2010s to early 2020s. The term "hexD" was originally coined by the music collective Hexcastcrew.

Etymology and characteristics#

According to Sticki, the founder of the netlabel Dismiss Yourself, the term “hexD” originally emerged through the music collective Hexcastcrew, who “hex songs—in their words, they cast spells via bitcrushing the music.” The process of “hexxing” a song involves a style of DJ mixing that makes heavy use of bitcrushing and digital effects. after the Dismiss Yourself compilation album Surge Compilation Vol. 1 (2020). The visual aesthetics of hexD draw influence from anime, internet aesthetics, and early Web 2.0 era iconography and artwork primarily associated with the 2006 online GIF editor Blingee as a form of childhood nostalgia that has been compared to the vaporwave microgenre. According to WKNC-FM, the mixing style is reminiscent of early Internet “low quality trance/adjacent EDM” anime AMVs. Alternative Press magazine described the style as “sped up, bitcrushed and glitched out”.

Precursors#

In 2011, Untrance released a mixtape titled “Deleted Seniors”, which featured EDM music mixed with heavy bitcrushing, marking one of the first times the extreme use of the effect was incorporated as an aesthetic quality in music. Writing for Complex, music journalist Kieran Press-Reynolds stated that the scene had roots in the work of rappers SpaceGhostPurrp and Cartier God. West Coast producer she_skin had earlier explored bitcrushing trap songs by Virginia rapper Diamondsonmydick, which influenced the Hexcastcrew collective.

Late 2010s–2020s: Origins#

The hexD scene initially emerged in June 2019 with the release of the DJ mix Rare RCB hexD.mp3 by Stacy Minajj under the alias “tomoe_theundy1ng”. Writing for Pitchfork, music critic Kieran Press-Reynolds stated that the underground scene in the early 2020s was “splintering every which way, from wailing digicore to bitcrushed hexD.” Subsequently, the netlabel Dismiss Yourself, which focused on obscure Internet music, uploaded the Stacy Minajj mix to their YouTube channel on August 23, 2019, which became instrumental to the wider proliferation of the hexD genre. They were also compared to the act $pirit Gurlz.

Surge#

Surge is an Internet microgenre of hip-hop that emerged in the late 2010s and early 2020s. The term was initially used synonymously with crushed trap and hexD. The style was named after the Dismiss Yourself compilation album Surge Compilation Vol. 1 (2020). The term “surge” was coined by a Discord friend of Sticki, the founder of the label, who created a fictional cover, which was later used as the official cover art for the compilation. Writing for Complex, music journalist Kieran Press-Reynolds described the style as “mellow and murky, a sort of lo-fi trap sound loaded with retro sound effects and compressed to sound like it was recorded on an old laptop microphone”. Adding that the scene did not crystallize until the release of Rare RCB hexD.mp3 in June 2019, a mix produced by tomoe_theundy1ng sampling a set of singles by the group Reptilian Club Boyz.