As a musical act, Xeno & Oaklander (Sean McBride and Liz Wendelbo) conflate a rich love of analog synths, melody, and mythology with eloquent nuance and a nod to the heritage they draw from. While that construct is the duo’s immediate kiss and crush, there’s a deeper importance to their collaboration which began in 2004. As evidenced in their debut Vigils (2004), McBride and Wendelbo’s artistic dynamic is more than just a mutual love for electronics but a contrast between architectural precision and painterly expression. From the film scores to the traditional albums they’ve recorded in their Brooklyn studio, they’ve both spurred and fostered the global synth wave revival through a commitment to analog-only production and performance as well as a strident respect for the medium.
On their latest album Hypnos and first for the Dais imprint, the duo leveraged the talents of visual artist and live sound engineer Egan Frantz to mix the album. It’s a touch that adds both punch and balance, allowing their inherent conceptual voices to converge into a collage with defined edges and warm, synapses of frequency and beat.
LP / Digital Album
Over the course of the last two decades, Detroit-based duo ADULT. (Nicola Kuperus and Adam Lee Miller) have released six albums and nineteen EPs and singles across some of our favorite labels: Mute, Ghostly International, Thrill Jockey, Clone Records, Third Man Records, and their own label, the revered Ersatz Audio. November 1998 marked their first release: the five-song 12″ “Dispassionate Furniture”. This September, twenty years later, Dais Records is proud to announce ADULT.’s seventh full length album: THIS BEHAVIOR.
The album began as 23 demos written and recorded in a remote cabin in the woods of Northern Michigan during the dead of winter. In total isolation, and with a reduced amount of gear (a modified version of their live setup) on the cabin’s kitchen table, the duo were completely immersed in an incessant inescapable studio of their own making – looping, repetitive analogue sequences grinding away day and night. At the end of the intense demo session, a handful of peers were enlisted by the band for the difficult task of paring down the demos into the final album.
The result is 10 tracks of uncompromising dark electronics, showcasing ADULT.’s return to aggressive and energetic dancefloor mastery. Album opener “This Behavior” alongside the follow-up “Violent Shakes” (which ascends into synths wailing like warning sirens over Kuperus’s commanding vocals) set the stage for an on-edge listen, while the heartbreaking “Silent Exchange” unfolds as a beautiful sad synth dirge. “Perversions of Humankind” breaks the mood – driving the listener into a slow and low groove before the frantic album midpoint of “Irregular Pleasure”. “Does The Body Know?” is the album’s post-punk anthem, with irresistible singalong “we’re out of order – we’re undefined!” The latter half of the album drives forward with “On The Edge (You Put Me…)” and “Lick Out The Content”, refusing rest and demanding movement and response. “Everything & Nothing” emerges slowly from sparkling synth textures, snowballing with nervous energy into an acid techno stomper before the album comes to a close on the icy landscape of “In All The Debris”, a goose-bump inducing slow electronic mantra that closes the curtain on a massive album.
LP / CD / Digital Album
Them Are Us Too was formed in the Bay Area by friends Kennedy Ashlyn and Cash Askew in 2012 after meeting at school. Fast friends with an appreciation for the same music and art, they recorded a demo and began performing intimate and memorable gigs on the west coast. They quickly gained a cult following as word spread about their youthful, innocent, and fresh take on the revered 80s dream pop and shoegaze sound, and Kennedy Ashlyn’s voice was immediately compared to Elizabeth Fraser, Kate Bush, and Harriet Wheeler – while Cash Askew’s washes of intricate guitar felt akin to Robin Guthrie, Ronny Moorings, or Kevin Shields. Their music felt familiar but new, nostalgic, and heartbreaking, with songs delivered simply and earnestly. They betrayed their age (both only 21 when they signed to DAIS) by releasing one of the most incredible debut albums of 2014, “Remain”.
Tragically, Cash Askew passed away in the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland in December of 2016, sending a shockwave of loss through our community. While Kennedy Ashlyn would eventually emerge as a solo artist through her project SRSQ, there were unfinished Them Are Us Too recordings and demos that Kennedy and those close to Cash felt deserved be heard in her memory.
Kennedy returned to the studio with producer Joshua Eustis (Telefon Tel Aviv), Sunny Haire (Cash’s stepfather), Matia Somovich (INHALT), and Anya Dross (Cash’s girlfriend) to complete unfinished demos and sketches, write new compositions, and honor Cash Askew. The result is “AMENDS”: an album of tragic beauty and depth that tugs at emotions and inspires.
Digital Album
HIDE was birthed from Chicago’s DIY scene in 2014. Heather Gabel and Seth Sher make up this electronic, sample based, post-industrial duo. Haunting vocals, throbbing sub-bass and trance inducing drones round out a sound that both punishes and empowers.
Digital Album
Here’s the latest release from Wetware, an industrial / experimental duo formed in 2015 from Brooklyn, NY.
Digital Album
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