Dekorder bring the third and final part of the Xela trilogy to its vinyl resting place, following the original cassette release on Digitalis. Almost anyone who has followed Xela's work will surely agree that this trilogy, including 'The Illuminated' and 'The Divine', comprises some of the subtlest and most affective music in his canon. 'The Sublime' takes Twells' sound "into the sickly afterlife", invoking a passage to exalted destinations almost beyond the reach of our mortal vessels, but possibly glimpsed here by those who peer deep enough. Side I is an exercise in synthesis entitled 'Lust & Paradise', and a glacial immersion into the kind of heavy breathing, elegiac ambience which defines Aphex Twin or Kevin Drumm's most reflective moments. It creeps the senses like sleep paralysis and perhaps represents what death will be like, locked still with your imagination for eternity and unable to physically fulfil its desires. Side II, 'Eve's Riposte' suggests a more opiated state, with a shimmering, golden blur of harp-like timbres washing through a system of low-end oscillations and caliginous ferric vapours. Coupled with the gorgeous sleeve art by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, it's a compelling set.
