Portland-based electronic duo Xibling have entangled themselves into a techno-organic melange of seductive synth-punk in their latest offering, the Yesbody EP. The new record is the mini-album follow-up to last autumn’s 3 track Light Pollution EP, whose musical evolution since conjures the talent and energy of legacy acts such as Kaz Product, and Malaria!
Indeed, as found across the new EP’s 6 tracks, rather than rehashing ideas already explored, vocalist Moriah West and instrumentalist Julian Thieme have assembled their music from the core components that made eclectic synth music exciting during the 80s, while diving headlong into the 21st-century avant-garde.
“Latex Gloves” is a dark introduction, implying where the sonic journey could lead. This is followed by the funky rhythm of “Vine, which bubbles and contorts with cavernous analog beats, both tactile and languid.
“Contract” is jazz-infused synth, alluding to the sounds of the best of french coldwave bands.
“Puppet” is a genre-defying anachronism, with spiral like a serpentine siren drowning its victim in a sea of modular fog.
“Reflection” evokes similar vibes to “Contract”, but with deeper urgency, and the EP closes out with its genius title track “Yesbody”—schizophrenic decoupage of punk-driven synth-wave.
Listen to the EP below:
Of the themes of the record, vocalist Moriah West explains:
“The Yesbody EP is a voracious shadow dance through bio/mechanical contemplations of embodiment, intimate and cultural connection, and agency.”
“Yesbody is an answer to the sensation of nobody. Having followed the thread of nobody, both to it’s zen, freeing, escape-velocity extreme, and the nihilistic, helpless, victimizing end; And realizing the body is found in the center.
But what does it mean to say Yesbody in this present world? We suspect getting urgently curious about that may be the only real option, short of The Singularity, in the face of such apocalyptic dissonance. And we fully endorse the pleasure and pain of the experiment.”
Order the EP here.
