Xordox releases Terraform on Ectopic Ents in May 2025

Xordox is the synthesizer-based project of Australian composer, producer, and sound artist JG Thirlwell. Initiated after a performance for a William S. Burroughs centenary event curated by John Zorn, the project developed through live configurations and studio refinements, eventually evolving into a solo venture. Characterized by its strict use of electronic instrumentation and references to speculative science fiction, Xordox channels cinematic atmospheres through structured synth compositions.

Title: Terraform
Artist: JG Thirlwell Xordox
Release Date: 2025-05-09
Genres: Electronica, Experimental Music, Synthwave
Label: Ectopic Ents
Description: Xordox returns with Terraform, the third synth-based album by JG Thirlwell, released May 2, 2025 via Ectopic Ents.

The third Xordox album, Terraform, was released on May 2, 2025, by Thirlwell’s own label Ectopic Ents, following earlier releases on Editions Mego. The album is issued on black and white splatter vinyl and digipack CD, with digital formats available from May 9.

Related articles: The radical sound of JG Thirlwell

What prompted the creation of the Xordox project in the first place, and how did it differ in intent or structure from your other bodies of work?

Well, Xordox kind of slowly morphed into being. I was invited by John Zorn to make a performance to commemorate the 100th birthday of William S. Burroughs. He was doing a series at his club, The Stone, and I didn’t think I had anything for the performance, but someone had lent me this Moog—a Little Phatty—and I had MIDI’d it up to my laptop with another small synthesizer. I was just messing around with arpeggios and sequences to see how it all worked together. Then I thought maybe I could do something with it.

I had been speaking with Sarah Lipstate, who has a project called Noveller, about doing a collaboration, so I came up with some frameworks using this system with the Moog Little Phatty and this MIDI Korg thing. I contacted Sarah and said, hey, I might do this show for the William Burroughs centenary—are you going to be around that day? She was out of town but getting in the day before. She said, yeah, sure, let’s do it.

So I put a structure together of several pieces. It’s a very small space, so I thought if it sucked, it didn’t matter. I had figured out some top-line melodies, gave her charts, and said, okay, you come in here and play like F, A, G, D here, then cue it in. It sounded good. We played it, and I thought, let’s develop this. We started performing under our names, JG Thirlwell and Sarah Lipstate, and did a bunch of shows, including a festival in Texas.

Eventually, I wanted to make it something more tangible, and then Sarah moved to LA. I took over the project. I had written all the pieces anyway. I often tried to get her to write little transition parts, but she preferred to keep her material for her Noveller project. I got her to record some parts on the first Xordox album, and I came up with the name Xordox.

One reason for choosing a name like Xordox was that I wanted to do something electronic and sci-fi based—something that would give itself away through the song titles. If you’d never heard of the project and were flipping through records at a fair, you’d see the titles—like Exploding Universe or Gamma Rays—and think, oh, that’s going to be interesting. I wanted it to feel neo-futuristic and electronic, and the titles would hint at that.

Coming up with the name Xordox took a really long time. I like the letter X—I have Steroid Maximus and Manorexia, which both have X in them. I think it’s important to have a project name that, when you Google it, you’re the only result. That’s why it took so long. A lot of names were already used by gamers or drug companies. Eventually, I settled on Xordox.

I was friends with Peter Rehberg, who had the label Editions Mego. I thought it would be a good home for the project because the type of music he released was electronic, which was the audience I wanted to reach. I sent it to him, he loved it, and put out the first two albums.

Then I started performing live as Xordox without Sarah, with some other people. Unfortunately, on the eve of the release of the second Xordox album, Omniverse, Peter Rehberg died. The album came out anyway. It was very sad—he was a good friend and an important figure in experimental and electronic music. It was very sudden.

When it came time to do the third Xordox album, I decided to put it out on my own label.

While working on Terraform, were there particular films, books, visual works, or environments that shaped your mindset or the album’s direction?

Well, initially, I thought of Xordox as a trilogy—three parts. In the first part, Neospection, the scene is set with tracks like Ignition, Takeoff, and Corridor. These reference a spacecraft taking off, the components of the spacecraft, and the start of a journey.

Part two continues this journey. It goes through things like black holes and encounters a space war. Argonia references a planet where a space war is taking place. Between Dimensions refers to dimensional travel and black holes.

When I came to the third album, I wanted the travelers from the first two albums to arrive at planet Xordox. That would complete the arc. So the third album represents the arrival at planet Xordox.

The first track on the album is Planet Xordox. The lyrics are: “Welcome to Planet Xordox. You are entering Planet Xordox.” There’s a line that says, “You’re entering Planet Xordox—now go home.” That references a T-shirt I saw in New York. There’s a street called Canal Street in the southern part of Manhattan. It’s getting more gentrified now, but it used to be part of Chinatown and was full of tourist T-shirts. Some said things like “F*** you, you fing f” or “New York F***ing City.” One used to say, “Welcome to New York, now go home.” I haven’t seen it in a while, but that was the reference.

So the idea with Planet Xordox is: welcome—but now go home. In the piece, you’re entering through immigration. That’s mirrored in the video. The concept is that there’s a space station orbiting Planet Xordox. If you want to enter, you have to go through the station—that’s immigration.

In this immigration zone, people from different planets and alien races are gathered. They’re being examined and tested for diseases and other things before being allowed in. So Planet Xordox is this immigration point, and then you enter the planet.

Planet Xordox itself is kind of a dystopian world. I don’t go into much detail about the actual planet on the album. There’s another space war element, and the album ends with a track called Neural Network.

Neural Network is a term used in artificial intelligence. It references technology, and the idea of technology going out of control.

During the writing of Terraform, were there moments where external events—personal, social, or otherwise—redirected your focus?

Well, not so much directly. I’m interested in technology, and that plays a part. Technology has always influenced my music—especially the tools I’m using—and different projects have different rules. Xordox has a rule that all instrumentation comes from synthesizers. There are no traditional drum machine sounds; even the sounds that perform the function of a bass drum or snare come from synthesizers. They’re synth sounds, but they play the percussive role.

A track like Anthrobot came about because I was reading about anthrobots. I decided to take that as the subject for the piece.

Neural Network was shaped by my being in a kind of exile from New York in 2023. I spent time out of the country—several weeks in the UK, then went to Australia for some shows. While there, a friend of mine, Simon Karis, who runs the label Nice Music (which puts out a lot of electronic music), introduced me to Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio—MESS. I’d heard of it before. They have an enormous collection of synthesizers.

I got a tour and booked several sessions for a kind of residency. Before going in, I chose the synthesizers I wanted to work with. They had an ARP 2600, which was a legendary instrument I’d never used but had always been interested in. I used to see it credited on records I had growing up. Eno had one, maybe in Roxy Music, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer used one as well. They also had the EMS AKS, which Eno definitely used. These were instruments I really wanted to engage with.

I went in with the idea of building blocks for the Xordox track Neural Network. I had the structure of the piece planned and then created sounds on all these different synthesizers, which became the components of the track. I made a lot of freeform sounds on the ARP 2600, which I then edited and cut up. I also recorded bass parts and sequences on Waldorf synthesizers and others, then spent a lot of time editing everything I’d compiled.

That’s how the piece came together—from these various synthesizers.

Each Xordox digipak has a conceptual visual structure. Inside the digipak, there’s a panel showing the working interface of a synthesizer, and another showing a spacecraft. Underneath one panel is a space photo; another shows the sun. In the first album, there’s the Earth. In the second, the Moon. In the third, the Sun. Across the trilogy, you have Earth, Moon, and Sun—each associated with spacecraft and synthesizer imagery. So there’s a unifying conceptual structure.

Initially, I thought this might be the last Xordox album. But I’ve decided it won’t be. I like it too much, and I have to keep it going.

How did you become involved in the new score for Prometheus’ Garden, and what drew you to the project?

Oh, I got contacted by Eric White. Eric is an amazing artist, painter, and illustrator—mainly a painter now. Strangely enough, he used to live in the same building as I do in Brooklyn. I met him here, although I already knew his work before he moved in. I even had one of his books.

So when he arrived, I knew exactly who he was. He creates incredibly detailed photorealistic paintings—you should look him up. He’s a really interesting person and a great guy.

He’s also a big fan of Frank Zappa. Prometheus’ Garden is part of that Zappa universe. They decided they wanted to create a new score for it.

He contacted me because they invited several artists to each contribute one minute of music. I’m one of those artists. So that’s how I got involved.

What led you to begin working on sculptural wall-pieces, and how does this visual practice relate to or diverge from your musical work?

Well, I started as a visual artist—before I was a musician. I went to art school and studied painting, printmaking, and drawing. I was always obsessed with music, but that came later. I could have gone in either direction, but music became my main avenue of expression.

I’ve always done the artwork for my records. In the last several years, I’ve also been creating limited edition screen prints, which I sell through my website. I had the idea of taking the visual language I’d been working on—almost entirely in a color palette of red, white, black, and gray—and translating it into wall pieces. That idea had been with me for a long time.

One of the inspirations was a sculpture I made for an exhibition in Sweden about 10 or 15 years ago. It was a large cube suspended from the ceiling, covered in mirrors, inside and out. I built a one-way mirror tube, stretched under pressure, and placed it inside the cube. Inside were 28 LEDs programmed via a chip mounted on top. The LEDs moved through sequences.

To experience it, you had to stand on a chair and insert your head into the one-way mirror tube. Looking out, you’d see an infinite mirrored landscape, but not yourself. Between the tube and the cube’s walls, the LEDs were suspended and running sequences. It was very psychedelic.

It was a large piece that hung in the center of a room. Someone was interested in buying it, but in the end, they didn’t. I’ve had it sitting in my hallway for years. The problem with a piece like that is that it needs a dedicated space—an entire room—and most people don’t have that kind of space.

So I decided that, in the future, I’d make wall pieces. They’re modular, and people can actually have them. You don’t need a whole room—just a wall. The other catalyst was the visual language I was exploring in the screen prints. I wanted to try a 3D version of that—taking the same shapes and making them dimensional, so they could be viewed from different angles, changing slightly, with added depth.

I thought about it for a long time and finally got around to doing it. I decided to construct seven pieces at once. I made the first seven and now they’re sitting in my house. I’m currently designing another series of seven. Once those are fabricated, we’ll see what happens.

Ultimately, I’d like to do three sets of seven and maybe exhibit them.

Are there any upcoming releases or works in progress that you’re currently developing?

Yeah, there’s a Venture Brothers Volume Three soundtrack album currently being manufactured. It will be released on August 1st of this year.

I’ve also been working on a Foetus album for about seven or eight years, which is nearly finished. I’m just adding a few final vocal touches—even today I’ve been working on it. I’m pretty happy with the mixes, but I’m going to do stem mixing, which means taking those mixes into another studio to refine them further. That’s scheduled for the end of this month.

I’ve started working on the artwork as well, so I’m hoping the whole thing will be completed by the end of July. The release is planned for November this year, on my label, Ectopic Ents. Both that and the Venture Brothers release are on my label.

As soon as I finish the Foetus album, I’ll begin finalizing and designing the artwork for an album of my soundtracks for the New York experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs. That’s scheduled for release in February 2026 on the label Room40.

So I’m really stepping up. By the end of this year, I’ll have released three albums, and I’m hoping to release four more next year.

Photos courtesy of JG Thirlwell

Matteo Damiani

Matteo Damiani is an Italian photographer and author. Curator of the sites Retrofuturista.com; weirditaly.com; china-underground.com and others