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Mark and Clive Ives, the remarkably prolific purveyors of exquisite shapeshifting electronic music under the moniker of Woo, have been creating their singular music since the early 1970's. Crafting cult favourites such as Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong and It's Cosy Inside - which were made available for the first time in the US on Independent Project Records at the end of the 1980's - the brothers Ives have once again teamed up with IPR to bring to you two new reshaped albums with this pairing of Xylophonics and Robot X, a fascinating (and ever surprising) journey into experimental retro-futuristic electronica. When Robot X was originally compiled by Woo in 2016, the brothers felt that the reality of humanoid robots being made and being used was imminent. This concept became the main inspiration for the album, fueled by the influence of Terry Gilliam's 1985 cinematic masterpiece Brazil, with it's blend of sci-fi and dystopian, whimsical dark comedy. Xylophonics was birthed through a similar process, reworking tracks found in the 90's section of the brothers' spacious archive. Back then, they had just begun recording onto computers, and this 2017 album showcases their first opportunity to properly link drum machines with keyboards, and create loops and multitrack more layers without the need of sound on sound on a tape deck, working on melodic loops made with tuned percussion instruments such as marimba, kalimba and xylophone, and creating a feel that is at once futuristic and optimistic. Robot X and Xylophonics tell a story of retro-futuristic visions from different angles: both proudly experimental, they combine a deluge of musical influences to offer something that is, quite remarkably, deeply layered and minimalist at the same time. The unpredictable instrumentals they unleash invite listeners to attach their own fantasies to what they hear, whether those fantasies belong to the past, the present or, more likely, a robotic future.
Woo