Cracked door opens, his sorry face, smoke comes in
It makes me uncomfortable, sticks to my skin
Air purifier at max, still nothing changes
Six-tatami one room, our two-person ranges
Dissatisfaction fills it, pent-up and staying
The air is heavy here, no point in praying
We share the same small space, no exit within
I feel it building up, nowhere to begin
I unlatch the window, let winter air drift in
He wears that sulky look—fine, we’re even then
We both feel the chill and play it like we don’t
Act like we never noticed; let it slide; we won’t
At the park, in the cold, kids climb the jungle bars
Red fingers, bright eyes—chasing tiny stars
They’re always honest, careless, wildly true—
When did we turn adult, and where did we lose that view?
Sometimes we talk; we’re not into the plot at all
We don’t care what we say, but voices ping the wall
That echo keeps a truce—thin peace we barely hold
Less word than tone, a hum between us both
The tv stays on mute; inside, a girl mouths storms
Her moving looks like dancing—silly in its form
And suddenly our worries feel small, outworn
For a minute, nothing matters—just breathing on
Cracked door opens, his sorry face, smoke comes in
It makes me uncomfortable, sticks to my skin
Air purifier at max, still nothing changes
Six-tatami one room, our two-person ranges
Dissatisfaction fills it, pent-up and staying
The air is heavy here, no point in praying
We share the same small space, no exit within
I feel it building up, nowhere to begin
I unlatch the window, let winter air drift in
He wears that sulky look—fine, we’re even then
We both feel the chill and play it like we don’t
Act like we never noticed; let it slide; we won’t
At the park, in the cold, kids climb the jungle bars
Red fingers, bright eyes—chasing tiny stars
They’re always honest, careless, wildly true—
When did we turn adult, and where did we lose that view?
Sometimes we talk; we’re not into the plot at all
We don’t care what we say, but voices ping the wall
That echo keeps a truce—thin peace we barely hold
Less word than tone, a hum between us both
The tv stays on mute; inside, a girl mouths storms
Her moving looks like dancing—silly in its form
And suddenly our worries feel small, outworn
For a minute, nothing matters—just breathing on
- Lyricist
QxQx
- Composer
QxQx
- Producer
Dr.D
- Vocals
QxQx
- Rap
QxQx
Listen to smoke ver.0 by QxQx
Streaming / Download
- ⚫︎
smoke ver.0
QxQx
Led by Dr.D - a practicing medical doctor and professional combat athlete - QxQx emerges from the Tokyo underground.
The debut single "Smoke" is a bedroom experimental track that fuses hard-hitting IDM glitches and irregular rhythms with inorganic, naive synthesized vocals.
While the sound design echoes the lineage of James Blake and Aphex Twin, it intersects with a lo-fi aesthetic and pop sensibility reminiscent of a modern-day Grimes, delivering a unique, addictive melodic core.
Artist Profile
QxQx
QxQx is a Tokyo-based indie/alternative project where humans and an AI persona perform together. Launched in 2026, it builds music around hard, warped beats drawing from glitch, IDM, hip-hop, post-dubstep, techno, and post-punk, paired with low, whispered lo-fi female vocals. Its sound balances beautiful melody with broken rhythm: mechanical tones, grainy drums, carefully placed noise and glitch, and slightly off-center machine grooves. Rather than using complex arrangements, QxQx uses short, memorable loops whose repetition creates a strong addictive pull. The vocals contrast with the density of the tracks. Restrained, close-mic'd, and slightly languid, they move between singing and rap, leaving space between words and giving the music a cool, intimate lo-fi character. The tension between highly detailed electronics and loose, understated vocals keeps the music experimental without becoming heavy, creating an unusual sense of lightness, humor, and pop immediacy. The approach shifts from sparse, spacious productions to dense low-end grooves, hip-hop-weighted beats, and more repetitive techno or house structures. Yet the core remains consistent: warped electronics, slightly unstable grooves, addictive loops, cool female vocals, and strong melody. If described through existing artists, QxQx sits somewhere between Flying Lotus's warped beat sense, Aphex Twin's alien electronics, Modeselektor's twisted machine groove, Billie Eilish's close, low-register vocals, and Cibo Matto's light female rap. Its artificial sound, female vocal presence, and visual identity have also led to comparisons with a contemporary Grimes. QxQx is led by Dr. D, a physician and long-time trackmaker who previously worked as YYoYY. Through the LOW HIGH WHO? scene and relationships with artists including DAOKO, Seiho, Utena Kobayashi, DE DE MOUSE, and Taiki Tsuneta, he absorbed a wide range of musical ideas before restarting with QxQx as a new project. He writes and produces the music and lyrics. QxQx began as a playful experiment: putting AI vocals over Dr. D's own tracks. Since January 2026, human members with backgrounds in singing, dance, and performance have joined, transforming the project into a hybrid of human authorship, physical performance, and AI voice and visuals. The AI persona is not simply a vocal tool but a character with its own voice, expressions, and fashion, existing alongside the human members. QxQx released "smoke" in March 2026, with "spiral" scheduled for September. Still at an early stage, the project has over 30,000 followers across social media and more than 10 million views and plays across its content. "smoke" has achieved a 37% save rate on Spotify and is being heard in Japan, the UK, France, and other countries worldwide. QxQx is also working on separate projects with Prefuse 73 (Scott Herren) and Howie B as producers. These collaborations are pushing the sound in new directions, with new material from both planned for this show. QxQx fits SXSW because it exists at the intersection of music, technology, visual culture, and performance. Its genre-crossing electronic sound, human/AI structure, character-driven visuals, fashion, and international collaborations all reflect the kind of cross-disciplinary experimentation SXSW brings together. For QxQx, SXSW is an ideal stage to present the full scope of a project built not only around new music, but around new relationships between sound, image, technology, and human performance.
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