This is cold wave at some of its chilliest and most reduced. Breath a sigh, pull the hair into your eyes and fear not; the world is as bad as you’d thought.
[Purchase] Dark Entries has once again dug deep into the annals of the past. This head down tail up hunt has unearthed another dusty gem. In 1980 a New Jersey bunch of rag tag misfits released their first and last LP, Xex with Group: Xex. Some thirty years on the record is a trailblazer for US synth pop. The group were all synth, without a guitar in sight. But, these guys are not synth as we know it.
To start off the Xex experience is the quirky “Fashion Hurts.” It seems incredible that this has not been picked up by some group opposed to the fashion industry. The track has quite a post punk feel, with synths being employed to create a disorientating melody. Male and female vocals intertwine in this strangely catchy piece of minimal pop that looks unkindly on couture. It seems Xex liked to go down the road of social commentary, as in “You Think;” espousing the mechanization of the office man. “SNGA,” or “Soviet Nerve Gas Attack,” is a minimal affair. All is removed bar ephemeral sounds and cold vocals. “Rome on $5 A Day” is a curious track. A metronomic beat is the backbone, with vocals telling the tale of some Red Revolt in and around the streets of the Italian capital. This is the line that Xex, and the album takes. Their synths, which were state of the art at the time of the album’s release, are not used to create textured melodies but to produce a backdrop from which lyrics can be orated. Something like a modular pulpit if you like. That is not to say there is not depth in the chords, there is. “Svetlana” works cold notes around a Soviet polemic. Few comparisons come to mind. In some ways Xex have a Guerre Froide feel, but they are much more sparse. Likewise, they have something like an emotionless Chrisma or Throbbing Gristle to them. Dark Entries own analogy is pretty much on the money, describing Xex as “a primitive B-52’s” who replaced “the dance/party vibe with resignation and cynical humour.” The tracks do have a real power to them. “Holland Tunnel” takes industrial motifs and sets on them with a monotone tirade. What permeates throughout the album is disaffection, and an almost cynical scowl to modern living. Even the way the group have used these new instruments of Arps and drum machines scoffs at their technological advancement, reducing them to clinical chords and disheartening beats. Throughout there is a local and global paranoia. The local comes to a head with “Cops,” the inescapable authority being given a distorted inhuman voice as the author tries to run. “Delta Five” ends the record, with male and female vocals harmonising to paint a lost and bleak future scape.
If you were after chirpy synth pop, turn around ‘cos this ain’t it. The record sounds like a bunch of political students getting together and making an album based on past debates. Overall the LP sounds like an art revolt. The tone taken snorts with discontent and disengagement. The cold war is a major theme, but anti-capitalism is there from the outset. Europe is not a haven for Xex, but an industrial park of mass production. The pecking order is in place, and you are not on the list is the message. There is little rest from this social collapse, with the listener being sucked into this Pinteresque world. This is cold wave at some of its chilliest and most reduced. Breath a sigh, pull the hair into your eyes and fear not; the world is as bad as you’d thought.
Group: Xex is out now on Dark Entries. [Purchase]
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