The eighth and latest slate of refined retro-futuristic synth-pop by Liz Wendelbo and Sean McBride aka Xeno & Oaklander is named after and inspired by “the study of what not to do, a negative image of a positive, the other side, the other: ‘Via Negativa (in the doorway light).'”
With the bilingual odes to bloodstones on “O Vermillion“— which premieres today— Xeno & Oaklander re-prove themselves masters of the axis of technology and poetry, snaking cables and synesthesia, mining melodies and myths across 15 years of focused artistry. Theirs is a muse still gilded and gleaming, burnished red and silver, attuned to “the unobservable, the unfamiliar, that which you don’t see directly.”
Recorded in the Autumn of 2023 at their modernist Connecticut home fashioned into a two-story synthesizer laboratory and mixing studio, Via Negativa (in the doorway light) is uniquely visionary in spirit yet precision in execution, a contrast central to the duo’s enduring chemistry. Embryonic piano sketches were translated to nuanced modular systems, which McBride weighted with “harmonic padding,” tuned percussion, and a spectral transfer device capable of “rendering spasms of rhythmic overtonal filigree.” Despite the technological complexity of their craft, emotively the songs require no deciphering– these are technicolor widescreen anthems of the cybernetic age.
Via Negativa (in the doorway light) will be released on November 15th via Dais and is available for pre-order here. See Xeno & Oaklander on the road in North America this November and December. More soon.
Xeno & Oaklander, on tour:
Nov 17 Pawtucket, RI – Machines with Magnets
Nov 18 Montreal, QC – Bar Le Ritz PDB
Nov 19 Ottawa, ON – House of Targ
Nov 20 Toronto, ON – Ground Control
Nov 22 Cleveland, OH – No Class
Nov 23 Indianapolis, IN – Black Circle
Nov 24 St Louis, MO – The Sinkhole
Nov 26 Chicago, IL – Beat Kitchen
Nov 27 Milwaukee, WI – X-Ray Arcade
Nov 29 St. Paul, MN – Turf Club
Dec 1 Salt Lake City, UT – The International
Dec 3 Portland, OR – Dante’s
Dec 4 Seattle, WA – Substation
Dec 5 Vancouver, BC – The Cobalt
Dec 8 Los Angeles, CA – The Paramount
Dec 9 San Diego, CA – Soda Bar
Dec 10 Landers, CA – Retreat Center
Dec 12 Denver, CO – Hi-Dive
Dec 14 Kansas City, MO – MiniBar
Dec 16 Louisville, KY – Whirling Tiger
Dec 17 Chapel Hill, NC – Local 506
Dec 19 Baltimore, MD – Metro Gallery
Dec 20 Brooklyn, NY – TV Eye [Record Release Party]
Dec 21 Philadelphia, PA – Milk Boy
Feb 8 Den Haag NL, Grauzone Festival
