Meditations on this Portland, Oregon album have been a long-time coming (the album was released September of 2018) please forgive the author for the delay!
[bandcamp width=500 height=620 album=3668251205 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=7137dc tracklist=false]
The WILD BODY – XOXOX
(FISHRULER Records)
There’s a delectable paranoia that XOXOX is mired in–every composition sounds like the magnetic soapbox sermon of someone wild-eyed grinning and warning the public that the end is nigh’– and it sounds fun…it sounds wicked, even. Michael Eff voices the jovial doomsayer with assertive, nonchalant and/or detached delivery throughout XOXOX– as if each voice had a unique but quarreling agenda– occasionally weaving in a vocal harmony that converges all three disparate attitudes to reveal a grander scheme: Let it Burn. This is part and parcel to the machinations of the EP’s musical movements as they too may be beautifully antithetical or irreverent, but they are always cohesive.
“XOXOX is as undeniably timeless, with its lurking grooves in unsettling and obscure atmospheres, as it is present– a personified upheaval of the homogenized and gloomy Portland of the now.”
Eff has a yelping timbre akin to James Chance and the Pop Group’s Mark Stewart (More on the Pop Group in a bit) that barks and bites with a no-fucks-given resolve. “We should find someone that knows Brian Eno,” he exclaims at the end of GLOBOPHOBIA, a perfectly cheeky and shit-kicking end to an otherwise ominous tune.
The Wild Body‘s kickstarted and angular guitar stabs, also from Eff, shine atop the brilliant sinew woven by Bassist Rebecca Rasmussen and the jagged-knuckle rhythms of drummer & living weapon, Nicholas Quiller. Each member utilizes every recorded moment as a perfectly orchestrated testament and/or deconstruction of their respective instruments. Enough can’t be said about Rasmussen and Quiller, but should be as XOXOX is a brilliant representation of their prowess, cunning and guile as both composers and performers. As I said, Rasmussen is the sinew, the weave of the wild body’s wonderful web, binding the disparate atmosphere of Eff’s jittery and glittery prey. Quiller is the spider itself, his percussion being the perfectly timed carnage of his syncopated, rhythmic strikes.
“…the Wild Body, much like our biological vessel, is an intricate system of otherwise diverse and complex components that, when in unison, compose a beating, breathing and harmonious ecosystem…imagine if that anatomy were possessed by an otherworldly being, a ghost or an inter-dimensional entity…”
When I first saw The Wild Body I was immediately reminded of the criminally underrated 70’s outfit, the Pop Group, specifically their 1979 masterpiece “Y”. I wonder if there is a direct influence… if so, it’s apparent only in hindsight. This is not just because they may share sonic tissue with the largely indescribable, dance-y “No-Wave” of yesteryear (alongside the aforementioned James Chance and Theoretical Girls) but also in the nail-biting paranoia that is conjured with their panic’d rhythms. As a matter of fact, the synchronicity of ‘XOXOX‘ being the answer to “Y” in title alone is a fun, if not wholly absurd, synchronous coincidence that is most likely apparent to this author only!
A perfect example of their quaking structures is found in MR. GNOME–the haunting jig akin to No-Wave’s most composed and intentional, where “DRINK” wonderfully drudges up the ThreeOneG / Gold Standard Labs ephemera of groups such as the tragically unsung Go Go Go Airheart. However, I am remiss to continue finding literal comparisons because although XOXOX is as undeniably timeless with its lurking grooves in unsettling and obscure atmospheres, it is utterly present– a personified upheaval of the homogenized and gloomy Portland of the now
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh6zSwpZK40&w=560&h=315]
“It is the chasm lying between being and non-being, over which it is impossible for logic to throw any bridge that, in certain forms of laughter, we leap.” – The Wild Body Facebook
Their name seems culled from some deep-dive artistic or philosophical reference (If I were to guess based on their own description above, I’d say was from a piece of Derrida-like deconstructionist philosophy such as the “Pharmakon”… however, I REFUSE TO GOOGLE IT!) . That said, I’ll end with my own take on the proverbial anatomy-analogy that’s sure to riddle their reviews:
There is no denying that the Wild Body, much like our biological vessel, is an intricate system of otherwise diverse and complex components that, when in unison, compose a beating, breathing and harmonious ecosystem. Now, imagine if that anatomy were possessed by an otherworldly being, a ghost or an inter-dimensional entity, come to hype us for our inevitable doomsday. This being would puppeteer and contort the human form into exciting, albeit unnatural, gestures and compositions as it spits a uniquely strange wisdom all its own. It’s alien shimmy-shake would prove infectious, transforming that shoe gazing basement show into a trans-dimensional limbo-line of sweaty limbs.
This is a legitimate description I wrote down from an actual performance.
There you might have a close, if not fully accurate, description for The Wild Body anthropomorphized.
– Keats Ross (Revel Rosz of W†H)
THE WILD BODY LINKS:
WEBSITE
BANDCAMP
If you’d like to be considered for a review for any artistic release, please submit materials to wethehallowed@gmail.com for consideration!
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