Xeno & Oaklander Via Negativa (In The Doorway Light) Vinyl LP Ruby Red Colour 2024

1. Via Negativa (In the Doorway Light)
2. Mercury Mind
3. The Unknown Side
4. Lost & There
5. Actor's Foil
6. Magic of the Manifold
7. O Vermillion
8. Strange Fellows

The eponymous opening track sets the pace, soaring sleekly overglittering synths and call-and-response vocals about arias, shattered light, and faces in stereo. From there the record expands and contracts, cycling through a gallery of moods and masks, animated by the band's fascination with drama, 'the idea of personae', and theatrical characters. Track by track, a murky, tragic backstory reveals itself: forlorn figures navigating a treacherous mercury mine, alternately poisoned by fumes or buried in collapsing caverns. Thetension between Teutonic, utopian synthetic pop and lyrical narratives of ghosts in silos, ruined mills, and the traumas of mineral excavation creates a compelling friction, alternately futurist and obsolete, elevated and subterranean. Wendelbo describes the music's polarities perfectly:'The heavy machinic din ofextraction in contrast with the enchantment of the mined precious gems and metals'.