ELECTRO/POP DUO XENO & OAKLANDER ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM, RELEASE SINGLE Listen to “Angélique” now /Hypnos LP is due out March 8, 2019 via DAIS Records.
The partnership between New York electro-minimalists Xeno & Oaklander spans all the way back to 2004, with no shortage of reinvention and experimentation coloring those years. The next act in X&O’s storied catalog is the band’s first release for Dais Records, an LP titled Hypnos, due out on March 8.
Listen to the album’s dreamy, synth-driven first single “Angélique,” now.
“‘Angélique’ is a song about wild flowers and how they connect us to the past beyond the beginning of our existence,” the band says of the track. “Flowers and plants are fascinating ancient life forms that have patiently bloomed and pollenated since the beginning of time. Their names are the stuff of poetry, and almost always a woman’s name.”
As Xeno & Oaklander, musicians Sean McBride (of Martial Canterel) and Liz Wendelbo pay tribute to their personal heritages by weaving sonic tapestries with analog synth, sprightly melodies, and technical nuance. Balancing their love for architectural precision and painterly expression, Xeno & Oaklander have played a key hand in the global synth wave revival since their well-received debut Vigils (2004).
With Hypnos, the band’s latest offering, the duo has enlisted the talents of visual artist and live sound engineer Egan Frantz to mix the album, which leans into the coldwave trappings that sent a cinematic chill through X&O’s earlier works. 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.
“Musically, Hypnos is a return to polyphony after several years of using strictly monophonic synthesizers,” McBride says about the album’s ethos. “This has brought dense harmonies and a more complex counterpoint to the composition. Staying with the same equipment and processes without the inveterate compulsion to update and refashion allows for a clearly perceivable genealogy with our previous work.”
Hypnos will be released to the world on March 8. Preorders are available here. Stay tuned for more news to come.
Hypnos — Track Listing:
1. Fire And Smoke
2. Hypnos
3. Angélique
4. Insomnia
5. The Light The Whisper
6. Altamira
7. A World Without Sun
8. Athena
