I’m a bit exhausted today, probably due to the poor air quality of Los Angeles at the moment. The skies are brown, and the smell of ash is pretty harsh, all due to the tragic fires occurring in Malibu and Thousand Oaks this weekend. So I’m gonna keep things brief.
I’ll start this evening with a playlist of Clan of Xymox’s setlist for their Echoplex performance last weekend. You can view some of the hightlights from that show on this previous post. The song selection offers a well-rounded view of where these Dutch artists have been, and where they are today. There’s a number of old classics, like “Stranger” and “Obsession,” as well as an equal number of later ones, like “She is Falling in Love,” to fill out the years in between.
Xymox is one of the originators of today’s coldwave movement. But in 1981, when they began, they were just labelled gothic, new wave, or alternative. Their synth-heavy sound excluded them from rock. And as one of the original 4AD Records bands, they tended to be categorized in the ambient avant-garde.
Check out a bit of underground music history with this setlist from Clan of Xymox …
