Counterclockwork, by Xaddax

Counterclockwork

by Xaddax

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Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Includes unlimited streaming of Counterclockwork via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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$16.85 USD or more
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1.	Lives On Nerves 02:30	buy track
2.	Sick Sneak 02:25	buy track
3.	X Train 02:12	buy track
4.	Busted Circuits 02:19	buy track
5.	Falls Off The Bone 01:42	buy track
6.	The High Hat 02:04	buy track
7.	Dropping Knives Down The Well 02:44	buy track
8.	Rickety Surveillance 02:29	buy track
9.	Hit Cancel 03:52	buy track
10.	Stark Terms 02:14	buy track

about

Nick Sakes boasts one of those impeccable underground-rock track records. His discography to date encompasses three brilliant, insular projects: prog-minded post-hardcore nightmare merchants Dazzling Killmen, cryptic art-punk psychos Colossamite and the skewed yet surprisingly tuneful Sicbay. Now, more than two decades on from Sakes's recording debut, comes the part where we inform you that the guitarist/shrieker has "matured," and is prepping his first singer-songwriter record or somesuch. Except that's entirely false; Sakes's latest band, Xaddax-- a duo with drummer Chrissy Rossettie -- is as challenging and gloriously cathartic as anything he's done to date.

Sakes and Rossettie met at Chicago's Fireside Bowl back in 2001, when Sicbay shared a bill with Rossettie's former band, the head-spinning neo–No Wave outfit My Name Is Rar-Rar. Flash forward to '09, when Sakes (then living in Minneapolis) and the Brooklyn-based Rossettie reconnected online and struck up a long-distance romance. Soon Sakes headed east, and within a few months, the pair had hatched a new musical entity, named Xaddax in honor of their shared love of "palindromes and pointy letters." A flurry of live shows commenced.

Counterclockwork, the debut Xaddax release is a must-hear for any Nick Sakes fan, but what's most impressive about the 25-minute LP is the way it places his trademark livid howl in an entirely new context. Working with a mad-scientist electroacoustic drum set-up -- huge toms, no cymbals, various sample-triggering pads and a foot-controlled synth pedal -- Rossettie pounds out lurching math-disco rhythms, haloed in scuzzy sci-fi FX. Sakes responds with perversely anthemic riffs and mantra-like shouts, resulting in a kind of hot-wired hardcore -- like Devo gone nastily dystopic. In a sense, Counterclockwork sounds like nothing Nick Sakes has ever done, but the record's spirit -- venemous aggression combined with bold ingenuity -- fulfills every promise of one of the most fiercely uncompromising discographies in contemporary American music.

credits

released May 14, 2012

Nick Sakes: Vocals, Guitar
Chrissy Rossettie: Drums, Electronics & Backing Vocals

Recorded and Engineered by Colin Marston
at Menegroth: The Thousand Caves, Queens, New York
Mastered by Weasel Walter