X Narrative - XN Mp3

Footsteps begin knocking. Hollow air leads into heavy breathing. We journey into the void of damned souls. There is a spoken word bit. Some 8bit synth lines. Then the singing ala Illegal Wiretaps begins. X Narrative finds comfort as a cross between The Church and Xiu Xiu and I'm definitely feeling it. This is all of that strange and experimental sounds you would hear from Xiu Xiu, yet at the same time it's that rock n roll vibe and punk urgency of The Church.

Random drum beats. Industrial synth comes in for a somewhat Nine Inch Nails mashup sound. The beats then begin to pulsate. The vocals are so powerful they almost become the music. It's very interesting to listen to at various times because one time through you should just focus on the musical aspects of it and at another run through you should focus on the vocals and have the music as part of the background, an afterthought if you will. It creates a sound that so many one dimensional musicians lack these days and I'm definitely enjoying it more than anything I hear on the radio.

Side B is similar to A and only reinforces my beliefs about the power of this sound. There is some drone hum and at the end some modem noise comes through but for the most part this is just something that needs to be listened to at least three times through to be fully experienced. It is just that good and as much as music can be straight forward and so much on the surface, X Narrative goes even deeper. © RAISED BY GYPSIES http://raisedbygypsies.blogspot.com/2014/11/cassette-review-x-narrative-xn-tested.html

Old-school industrial gets filtered through the depraved grey matter of To Live and Shave in L.A. mastermind Tom Smith. Another recent release on the increasingly intriguing Tested Souls imprint, XN is the debut from X Narrative, the new duo of Blossoming Noise boss and To Live And Shave In L.A. / Exploring Therapeutic Encounter / Cursory / Black Meat member Graham Moore on tapes/electronics, and renowned weirdo Smith on vocals, who besides running the long-running sonic freak show To Live and Shave in L.A. has also abused ears and minds with the likes of Miss High Heel and Ohne (not to mention his stint in an early incarnation of Pussy Galore).
Like the other releases on this burgeoning imprint, XN explores dark regions of the subconscious, opening up with a stretch of murky ambience that could pass for part of a background score to a gialli, deep breathing heaving over a swirling bed of droning synth. That soon moves into the unsettlingly weird "In Sight In An Assumed Body", materializing into a bizarre sort of languid quasi-power electronics, hallucinatory lyrics belted out by Tom Smith's demented lounge singer delivery over a sheet of minimal electronic throb, but nowhere as campy as that description might have you think, as a clipped drum machine rhythm suddenly emerges onto the scene and transforms it into a twisted industrial swagger. The following tracks follow suit, minimal pulsating rhythms and hushed black drones panning from left to right as those depraved crooning vocals continue to ooze from the speakers, flurries of crackling black static and swarming sine waves swelling beneath the dreamlike blur of voices that occur as the multiple layered tracks of vocals become smeared together. It even approaches a kind of twisted, brain-damaged danceability with the fractured tribal rhythms of the closer "Fully Described", recalling the likes of Throbbing Gristle or SPK for a minute. Great stuff. Comes on a pro-manufactured cassette in a screen printed Arigato-style case, limited to one hundred copies. © CRUCIAL BLAST