XIXA - The Code (Official Video)

Listen - xixa.lnk.to/th...
Buy: xixa.bigcartel...
www.xixamusic.com
/ xixamusic
open.spotify.c...
After gaining the attention of the likes of NPR, Kerrang!, and the Arizona Republic with their darkly theatrical western epic The Code EP, Arizona mainstays XIXA are now debuting new gothic peyote-trip visuals, bringing the title track to life. Directed by their longtime visual collaborator and fellow Tucsonan Daniel Martin Diaz, who is internationally recognized for his unique take on cosmology and surrealism, the video brings to fruition XIXA’s mystical brand of southwestern occult psychedelia.
The Code EP, available now, blends psych-rock, cumbia, goth rock, cowboy folk and windswept desert blues into a dark, simmering occult stew, mesmerizing the listener and then leaving them in the aftermath of a dust storm, wondering what is to come.
“...a heavy, reverbed, twangy chicha Spaghetti Western sheen, mystery vocals emerging from the clouds. This is an example of a regional band that certainly deserves much wider recognition.” - NPR
“Their unique style combination of desolate Americana, gritty guitars, and cumbia comes together perfectly - Kerrang!
“...a sonic product of how different cultures can come together to manifest something that can move the listener beyond words.” - CVLT Nation
“...dark-hued psych, tinged with a little spaghetti western grandeur...resplendent with cinematic sweep.” - BrooklynVegan
Can you crack The Code? XIXA, Tucson’s dark, dusty gothic overlords, aren’t even
sure they can. For their new, four-track EP, they reached further into the desert, into
their instruments, and into their words, carving a deeper, more grandiose space for their
cumbia-tinged psychedelic rock to swell. “At times this record feels like us trying to
decipher the language of our music,” says Gabriel Sullivan who shares lead vocals and
lead guitar alongside Brian Lopez. “At others it’s like we’re intentionally hiding a code in
the language of the songs. Everything has a mystic quality.”
XIXA are a guitar-slinging six-piece formed in the heart of the deep Southwest, uniquely
attuned to the desert and their Latin roots. Combining gritty guitars, the bumping grind
of chicha, and windswept desert blues into a mesmerizing stew, they are by turns trippy
and devilish, like jam band getting high on Diá de Los Muertos. 2016’s Bloodline saw
them inject heavy fuzz guitars and Latin pulses into sandy rock’n’roll, a potent mix that
took them all over the world for nigh on two whole years.
And now they stand ready to take the next step, to follow, as Lopez puts it, “the sonic
thread woven through our mutual admiration for Peruvian chicha and our roots as
songwriters and storytellers.” The Code EP hones in on those elements that resonate
most in their earlier works and discards those that didn’t, a distillation of what makes the
XIXA sound so unique. “It’s the beginning of a sonic and visual effort that best defines
what we consider to be The New Southwest,” adds Lopez.
With a visual language and artwork provided by world-renowned artist and Tucson
native Daniel Martin Diaz - a long time collaborator of the band - that effort has birthed
a swirling, raw collection of songs, intense and sun bleached yet shot through with an
inky gothic horror. They scan like the long lost soundtrack to a panoramic Tarantino
Western; poised, stylish, and menacing. On ‘Mantra’, Sullivan sings like Leonard Cohen
re-imagined as a desert outlaw; ‘Osiris’ is Ennio Morricone stumbling through the
Mexican badlands in a dream.
Then there’s the tumbling rhythms and underworld carnival spirit of the title track, a
rollicking psychedelic ride guided by some smirking, malevolent demon. “I hear him
everyday / But I cannot speak his name”, growls Sullivan as the band gallop away in a
frenzy. It’s XIXA at their potent, eclectic best, stretching out to their past to pave the way
to the future. “The Code is a record of language, mysticism, magick, desert,” says
Sullivan. “It is our language.” Crack it if you dare.