As he was working on Three/Three, the long-awaited fourth album by his influential hip-hop production alias Dabrye, Tadd Mullinix began working on a different project that took inspiration from the early days of jungle as well as seminal releases on Warp Records and the second wave of Detroit techno. The name X-Altera is a reference to the Latin phrase ex altera, meaning "from or of the other side," as well as a tribute to Underground Resistance's X-101 and X-102 offshoots. The music cross-pollinates drum'n'bass with techno, focusing on smooth, atmospheric melodies and shredded, uptempo breakbeats, but never sounding too derivative of either style. It's a fresh sound that recalls artists like 4hero and Kenny Larkin without directly copying them, and fits in a late-2010s context along with producers such as Skee Mask and Om Unit while doing something different and unique. Mullinix succeeds at balancing lush textures and uplifting moods with a hint of darkness, keeping things from sounding too fluffy. Nothing here is as hard as the roughneck jungle Mullinix previously produced as one half of Soundmurderer & SK-1 -- there are no brutalist Amen break tear-outs, and ragga vocals are used sparingly here. The beats sound jittery yet airy, and the synth sweeps are generally sunny and euphoric. Mullinix switches things up by dropping the tempo a bit on the swirly, spacy "Parallel Rites (Kepler-452b)," which closely resembles early Black Dog or B12, while "Shoreline (Can't Understand)" seems like a hybrid of U.K. garage and darkside jungle. If Jacob's Optical Stairway ever made a second album, it would be tough competition with this one. X-Altera is a fresh reinvention, as well as Mullinix's second brilliant album of 2018.