Eksi Ekso
I Am Your Bastard Wings
The latest brainchild from the creative forces behind THE BURNING PARIS and ON FIRE, EKSI EKSO is poised for meteoric propulsion via their convergence of atypical rock instrumentation, experimentation with form, and the breath of collaborative writing via six musicians coming from very different schools. Nate Shumaker (vocals/guitar), Tom Korkidis (vocals/bass/keys/samples), Sean Will (flugelhorn/trumpet/keys/samples), Clara Kebabian (violin/oboe/vocals), Beth Holub (viola), and Alex Mihm (drums/percussion) compose songs that play out like soundtracks to found footage reels. I Am Your Bastard Wings utilizes three different vocalists who sometimes sing together, sometimes separately, sometimes not at all; a chamber section (violin, viola, and flugelhorn/trumpet) which also separates into lead instruments that soar as much as any lead guitar; an underbelly of live loops and prerecorded samples; blocks of grand piano and dual analog keys/synths; arpegiated guitars soaked in reverb; and a rock rhythm section that teeters between a back-beat pocket and an unshakeable teenage urge to visit the extremes of tolerable dynamics. It's far too easy to categorize EKSI EKSO with sub-genre titles that have now been flogged to death: post-rock, chamber rock, art rock, shoegazer... essentially EKSI EKSO is still a rock band that owes just as much to Black Sabbath than it does to Ravel, just as much to Charles Mingus than it does to the Cure, and just as much to CAN as it does to Talk Talk!