The Answer Is In The Beat

Woo: Xylophonics & Robot X (Independent Project Records, 2024)

April 9, 2024 at 7:56 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

The two brothers collectively known as Woo have been making strange, whimsical, unclassifiable music together for over 50 years. Two of their albums from the ’80s were issued by Independent Project Records, and several decades later earned a degree of cult success and well-received reissues (Drag City resurrected It’s Cosy Inside in 2012). Now they’re finally back on the label, with a first-time physical edition of two albums from the 2010s. Xylophonics is heavy on shimmering synths and bright, interlocked percussion. It seems like it’s evoking the music of some distant tropical paradise, but it’s hard to imagine which one it might be. Regardless, it’s sort of Fourth World, sort of post-minimalist (particularly on the hypnotic “Memory Oscillator” and “Whistling Home”), a bit offbeat, and a much easier listen than most music deemed “experimental”. Robot X is compiled from recordings made on a 4-track during the ’80s, and it’s more playful, almost approaching a Pee-Wee’s Playhouse type of quirkiness, but much more mellow. It could still easily be the soundtrack for a kid’s show or film, though. Lots of clanky electronics but also gentle, textural guitar melodies and some woodwinds tucked in. It generally feels very loose, carefree, and spontaneous. The title track jokingly riffs on Kraftwerk’s “The Robots”, but the music does not sound like the cold, emotionless work of automatons.