SOISONG - XAJ3Z (BLACK VINYL) (2LP)

"SoiSong is the bright, stunning, and short-lived project conceived in 2007 by Ivan Pavlov (CoH) and Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson (of Coil). The duo combined Pavlov's uncompromisingly-visceral digital aesthetics with Sleazy's decadent, dark and whimsical approach to creation. Primarily located on the Eastern Pacific Rim, the two named the project after the Thai word for `two' (song), as well as the seedy red-light quarters ("gloomy Soi's, or alley-ways") of Bangkok. Together, they developed a unique, elegant, yet rather cryptical musical language. SoiSong's debut full-length xAj3z is a digital reference to jazz: seemingly acoustic, effervescent, boundary breaking, digital-era entertainment where light rays and tropical heat are backed up by zeroes and ones. The album is a defining statement, and an arbiter of the possibilities in the (then- )developing late-2000s music landscape. Without the desire to be commercial, or convenient, SoiSong was not beholden to the conventions of easily defined tagging, and, in their own, "new, as-yet-un-categorizable genre," with xAj3z being its masterwork. xAj3z freely mixes musical styles and combines various approaches to music-making: artificial vocalists are accompanied by real drums, jazz-noir arrangements meet the delicate melodics of the South Seas, and computers are made to sound warm and organic. The album shows no apparent respect for genre-definition and aims at communicating with the listener at highest levels of emotional intensity, often lyrical, sometimes dark, on occasions amusing and even uplifting." (label info)