An overdrive guitar with a two headed sound, sometimes epic, always badly broken,
A screaming sax with epileptic delusions from beyond the grave yet refined and convulsive,
A jackhammer drums with an offbeat groove in Hellish morse code :
6Exhance.
Meticulously deployed asymmetrical architecture, clearly orchestrated savagery, the music of this power trio sounds like a “memento mori”: “Et in Cacophonia ego”.
6Exhance is a cacophony embrio « very-math-metal-free-jazz ».
Founded in Belgium somewhere between The Hainaut and Antwerp, the band was born from the recent encounter (july 2021) of three musicians who have scoured underground scenes for years. With bands like Raxinasky, Wound Collector, Royal Jake, they have played all over Europe, alongside Melt Banana, Zu, KK Null, Caspar Brötzmann, Zenigeva, Noxagt, Flat Earth society, Killer,…
Some of them are also active in balkan orchestras.
6Exhance recorded its first album at the Blackout Studio in Brussels, end of April 2022.
Recording and mixing by Edgar Kendrick
Mastering by Alan Douches for West West Side Music
Video works by Raphael Kolacz
www.6exhance.com

REVIEWS:
Belgian trio, 6Exhance, formed in 2021 when three veterans of the country’s experimental music scene booked a rehearsal room and jammed the night away like mad scientists. We can guess that they bonded over a shared love of Caspar Brötzman, Naked City and Gorguts and a passion for the soundtracks of TV detective dramas from the 1970s. Like soldiers who never discuss their body count, they won’t have wasted any time talking about their time at music college apart from a few networking anecdotes. Time is precious when the free jazz spirit summons you to remake it in the image of a metal band. Pretentious this is not, but pressing? Yes.
An automated warning siren gives way to an overspill of shredding drums, busy guitars, and forceful saxophones in opener, ‘Nourrir’, as if somebody asked three musicians in separate rooms to play music without visibility of each other. The shrill of Peter Verdonck’s saxophone sounds like a comedy horror motif. Kjell De Raes adds his drum fills the way a French chef adds celery as a basic stock to his dish. This machinery works well enough to manufacture goods but for how much longer can it operate with so many competing pressure points? A refreshing introduction of blood-thirsty death metal vocals at 02:20 adds yet more stress to the pot. Listen how the drums accent the arbitrary scale runs of the electric guitar – it’s a powerful distortion that steams from the amps.
You’ll find plenty of chugging among the embroidery of the guitar patterns in ‘Feuler’. Kjell De Raes uses this an opportunity to create his own live drum clinic for those listeners searching for a sub-plot. The sax sounds like a backwards guitar solo at its lowest pitch of expression. Though the drums appear complex, you can hear how 6Exhance’s sticksman avoids inserting a groove in favour of accenting the scale-patterns with extended rolls rather than a common beat. Riffs linger in the mid-section of this song like a tenant with an eviction notice approaching its expiry date.
An analysis of David Jean Nokerman’s riffs reveals a taste for discordant rotations and frenetic jazz-fusion shred fills. Think Gorguts meets Allan Holdsworth. Adding vocals in this cacophony of chaos seems superfluous on first listen, but they enhance the unorthodox aggression of the music. Is there a formula to this free jazz approach to metal? ‘Ahaner’ is worth a case study. On the surface, the guitarist comes up with a riff, the drummer uses this as a reference point and then expands the chops he learned in music college. The bass is an extra lining rather than a unique personality in the mix. You feel like you’re listening to a malfunctioning pinball machine at the end. Page Hamilton of Helmet would love to jam with these guys.
The call-and-response death metal vocals at the beginning of ‘Sourdre’ are a welcome focal point as the drummer lays down a regular but frantic beat wrapped in constant tension. Where is the release? The saxophone soloing is always in a rush, like a waitress with fifteen customers to serve at once. We know the answer for drummers, but why do death metal guitarists love jazz? Is it because it’s one final step of advanced learning that’s less enjoyable than fretting a meaty riff but more pleasing as a piece of mastery? You’ll reach ‘Nosographier’ and wonder when the trio will take us through the metropolitan streets of the 1970s as detectives in a Belgian city that needs cleaning up? Screaming saxophones and distorted guitars go together like turkey and stuffing – you wouldn’t eat them on the same sandwich every day, but they tickle the taste buds when you do.
As a listener, you can play this as background music or experience it under intense concentration – that’s the enlightening secret of Et in Cacophonia ego. We sometimes hear of long-term fears that metal will go the same way as jazz as a niche genre for advanced musicians and independent-minded adventurers who care nothing for pop culture. Would this be a bad thing? The musical world is a better place for the existence of this record even if it never becomes a footnote in the history of experimental art.
www.screamblastrepeat.com/6exhance-et-in-cacophonia-ego/

Im Bann eines schrillen Saxophons und einer brachialen Gitarre entführt uns das belgische Power-Trio 6Exhance in sein Album "Et in Cacophonia ego". Die mathematischen Klänge und die freie Jazz-Improvisation versprechen ein einzigartiges Hörerlebnis. Doch hält das Album, was es verspricht?
Mit "Et in Cacophonia ego" präsentiert 6Exhance ein klangliches Experiment, das zwischen den Genres Mathcore und Free Jazz oszilliert. Die übersteuerte Gitarre erzeugt einen zweiköpfigen Klang, mal episch, immer gebrochen. Das schreiende Saxophon vermittelt epileptische Visionen aus dem Jenseits, jedoch auf raffinierte und krampfhafte Weise.
Die Jackhammer-Drums setzen einen offbeat Groove in höllischem Morsecode. Die Musik dieses Power-Trios wirkt wie ein musikalisches "Memento Mori". Die sorgfältig platzierte asymmetrische Architektur und die klar orchestrierte Wildheit machen "Et in Cacophonia ego" zu einer Kakofonie-Embryonalzelle im Bereich "Very-Math-Metal-Free-Jazz".
Gegründet im Juli 2021 in Belgien, haben die drei Musiker, geprägt durch ihre Erfahrungen mit Bands wie Raxinasky, Wound Collector und Royal Jake, europaweit gespielt. Die Vielseitigkeit der Bandmitglieder zeigt sich auch in ihrer Aktivität in Balkan-Orchestern.
Aufgenommen im Blackout Studio in Brüssel und gemischt von Edgar Kendrick, zeigt das Album eine eindrucksvolle Klanglandschaft. Die Tracklist, angeführt von "Nourrir" bis "Peroraisonner", enthält fesselnde musikalische Kapitel.
Insgesamt hinterlässt "Et in Cacophonia ego" einen markanten Eindruck, der jedoch nicht jedermanns Sache sein könnte. Die Kombination aus Mathcore und Free Jazz erfordert eine gewisse Offenheit für experimentelle Klänge. Mit einer Bewertung von 7/10 punktet das Album durch Originalität und handwerkliches Können, auch wenn es nicht für jeden Geschmack geeignet ist.
www.amplified-mag.de/reviews/6exhance-klangrausch-zwischen-mathcore-und-free-jazz-et-in-cacophonia-ego-im-check

6Exhance: Et in Cacophonia Ego (2023) - mini-review
Belgian band 6Exhance are out with the album "Et in Cacophonia Ego", and progressive metal is probably the best definition to sort the music on this album under. This is a mainly instrumental album, with the few vocal parts present being of a more distorted and extreme variety, and while the music can probably be described as extreme too it is not directly what one might call an extreme metal album. While many of the passages can be tight, hard and rather intense, the defining aspect of this production is the mathematical precision that is a recurring element throughout, and the more expressive and free form role of the saxophone in this landscape. Alongside some virtuous and expressive details also from the other instruments we get a good blend of free form jazz, math metal and what one might describe as free form metal. With just a little bit of an extreme metal flavoring as mentioned. This is chaotic and challenging music from start to finish, with a solitary drone experiment as the singular side step and exception to the norm, and those with a taste for the marriage of math metal, free form jazz and expressive, experimental metal explored in a fairly intense context and manner should find this album to be a rather intriguing experience I surmise.
www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=890261296433019&set=a.523305923128560


www.toxicmetalzine.com/post/on-december-15-belgian-powertrio-6exhance-will-release-called-et-in-cacophonia-ego

THEY TALKED ABOUT:
rock-tribune.com/story-s/actueel/powertrio-6exhance-debuteert-met-kakofonie-van-georkestreerde-wreedheid/

www.shootmeagain.com/readnews/82375_lepremieralbumde6exhanceenecoute

www.truemetal.it/heavy-metal-news/6exhance-il-15-dicembre-fuori-et-in-cacophonia-ego-lalbum-di-debutto-1140411

throneofabsence.wordpress.com/2023/12/01/6exhance-et-in-cacophonia-ego/

www.toxicmetalzine.com/post/on-december-15-belgian-powertrio-6exhance-will-release-called-et-in-cacophonia-ego

wyckedlady.de/index.php/the-monthly-tinnitus-fuel/the-tinnitus-fuel-december-2023