The world X-Files inhabits on Wall Street is a depressing, at times constricting one. The project’s music…jumping between lonely ambient to more unhinged noise…has always brought to mind empty city streets, bathed in a little neon from nearby signs but ultimately feeling empty. Wall Street ups the solitude up significantly, featuring some of X-Files’ most melancholy numbers to date. “Field Of Porn Dreams” matches sparse piano notes against an electronic hum, alone and thinking of something better, as does the misty “Hollywood Tragedy.” Even more crushing, though, are songs such as “Officeworker,” which takes what could have been a cliche — the sound of typing looped — and turns it in to something foreboding by matching it up with ominous synth whirs. Wall Street exists in the same realm as James Ferraro’s recent explorations of urban life, capturing the downsides of the big city in all their sad and ugly ways. Listen above.
