My only experience with XBXRX comes from random split singles with An Albatross, and other noise based punk bands, until I finally started checking them out on their own. They fit into the Hella, Lightning Bolt, Aa, sounds... those periods of listening when I want extreme bombarding noise. It feels good to think that I might be annoying someone with the mess. Turns out XBXRX started after seeing an Unwound show, who tends to have that kind of awesome power. But really they had me at Unwound.
I haven't heard their earlier new wave style synth work from those early days but this 10 song EP/soundtrack is typical of their crazy start, stop style of distorted vocals. Taking timing to the limit, it's all about those dynamic extremes, the quietest, the loudest, the fastest. And with a jazz kind of sensibility, they have an impeccable work ethic to pull this arrangements off, like a noisier, less melodic Deerhoof. No one is going to cover them.
I like a band that takes a way of working to it's near end game and rides it out for a while, really interesting things start to happen when an idea gets pushed to the limits like this.
They're under appreciated, they've been around the block, they keep doing it, probably because they like fucking with these limits too.
Bless Polyvinyl for supporting these guys, and their extremist melodies...I know I'm going back to re-listen to their old singles tonight.
O is a 10-song 7”. Yes, that’s right – 10 songs! O is a return to form for the band harkening back to their Sixth in Sixes era.
Accompanying the single will be a Lawrence Cline directed mini-movie for the whole single.
XBXRX’s range of supporters run the gamut of Henry Rollins, Ian MacKaye, Sonic Youth, Peaches, Mates of State, and many more.
Maybe you’ve heard the term “artist’s artist.” That’s XBXRX. The core of the band is two brothers who have had as much as an impact on the SF/Oakland art/punk scene as the Kinsella brothers have had in the mid-West.
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