XANDER DUELL
‘EARTH ON ITS AXIS’
ALBUM PRODUCED BY ANDREW WYATT OF MIIKE SNOW AND DAMON McMAHON OF AMEN DUNES OUT LATER THIS YEAR
Following the release of his debut long-player on Mexican Summer in 2011, New York City artist Xander Duell returns with new album ‘Wade Laiste’ on Swedish art collective INGRID label later this year.
For his follow-up full-length Wade Laiste, Xander was able to bring together the unlikely musical pairing of producers Andrew Wyatt of Miike Snow, and Damon McMahon, creator of Amen Dunes.
The album was recorded in Sear Sound, one of New York City’s most renowned and historic recording studios, with a hyper-real rhythm section composed of David Bowie’s drummer (Sterling Campbell) and Maxwell’s bassist (Hod David), as well as musical accompaniment by producers Andrew Wyatt and Damon McMahon.
The first single to be taken off the album is ‘Earth On Its Axis’, watch the video here:
“Then in a drunken haze, stabbed her in the parking lot of a TGI Friday’s,” sings Xander on this track. It’s David Lynch blues & pill-head 2014 Avant-soul born from some of the deepest and most unusually combined musicianship on any record to come out of New York City for quite some time.
When a teenager, Xander Duell started the band Inouk with his brother. He later joined Ambulance LTD, where he co-wrote songs.
His solo debut, Experimental Tape No.2, Vol.1 was a collection of recordings done in a Chelsea apartment on Garage Band over the course of two years, late late at night and in the early morning. It was rich and involved pop song craft, mixed with uncompromising drug-damaged confession and discordance in songs that sometimes clocked in under a minute. The songs were fragmented paeans to regret, hallucination, hatred, and love, insanely and indiscriminately pieced together with anything he could get his hands on: cheesy MIDI piano, synth patches, drum machine wanderings, nylon string guitar, and lush three and four-part harmony.
Perhaps it was a bit too much for most people to wrap their heads around at the time, but where Experimental Tape No.2, Vol.1 was raw and inward bedroom-pop, new album Wade Laiste is slick and extroverted future soul.
No Comments