

Ahead of their Coachella debut, Korea-based septet XG released XDM Unidentified Waves, a remix album featuring alternate versions of some of the group’s most popular songs. The eight tracks are reimagined through different genres—including Jersey club, house, and trance—by XG executive producer JAKOPS, aka Simon Junho Park. All are imbued with the kind of dance-party energy that would fit right in on a festival field. Here, XG’s low-key trap-beat track “GRL GVNG” becomes an exultant house bop, and the whisper hook of debut single “TIPPY TOES” becomes more abstract and distorted as it builds to a drop beat. It’s all in the pursuit of further defining “X-pop,” the self-described sound for the internationally minded group. All of XG’s members—Jurin, Chisa, Hinata, Harvey, Juria, Maya, and Cocona—are Japanese, but the group is based in Korea, and sings and raps mostly in English. Around the release of XG’s debut EP, NEW DNA, singer Chisa told Apple Music’s Brooke Reese, “I would describe XG's sound as a mixture inspired by R&B and hip-hop, but we also have a lot of original flavors included in there as well.”