Plans are sometimes cast to the wayside when you expect a week to move by quietly and unannounced but that monkey wrench, oooooh that monkey wrench. There wasn’t anything I planned to complete this week but, things change.

Remembering something I was once told, and that was “Don’t let people know you don’t know about something because then it looks poorly on you.” I’ve never subscribed to that way of thinking, especially when it comes to music. I’m willing to offer my ignorance on something because guess what? I don’t know everything. We all understand it would be great if we were all knowledgeable but I’m not the great pretender. I have an unquenched thirst to learn about something new, whether it’s literature, art, politics, and music, it doesn’t matter; we fight ignorance with knowledge.

XENO & OAKLANDER – VIA NEGATIVA (IN THE DOORWAY LIGHT)

With that said, while I’ve never heard any of Xeno & Oaklander’s music, the name strikes with familiarity. Made up of Sean McBride and Liz Wendelbo, the duo has been focused on its dark synth wave for the better part of 20 years(!). The band’s new album Via Negativa [in the doorway light] (Dais Records) is, well, striking. Now while the release scurries around offering hints of nostalgia, it seems to be firmly rooted in 2024. There’s a definitive sound seeping through its music and while many might be able to replicate it, the warmth emanating from analog synthesizers used, which is one thing Zeno & Oaklander have been committed to using, can’t truly be replicated. Ok, comparisons might be cheap and worth less than a buck but we can remember those earlier sounds Martin Gore, Alan Wilder, and Andy Fletcher were able to capture on past recordings, Via Negativa, the band’s ninth full-length release, seizes that same ethos. It’s not difficult to spot but that’s where the comparison ends because this is altogether something much different.  

Although Xeno & Oaklander travel through familiar territory, no two songs are ever the same. And occasionally one track could sound like more than one. The opening title track is a slapper right from the start with its underscored repetitive bouncing rhythm, layered with more keyboard notes cutting with sharpness. Wendelbo’s airy voice is accentuated by McBride’s through this powerful & strengthened track. “Mercury Mind” quickly follows and it immediately draws you in with those same stabbing keyboard notes but the track is awash with a layered melody. It’s inviting, as is Wendelbo’s voice, and somewhere down the line before the two-minute mark the timbre seems to change, becoming darker; much more gloom and almost tragic. When McBride’s vocals blend in, it’s cold, almost mechanical, juxtaposed against Wendelbo’s softness. It’s a brilliant combination, which will have you hitting that repeat button.

It’s the small things that might be forgotten or missed here and I don’t want “Lost And There” to be that. There’s so much going on within its rhythm and I can’t get enough of its intro, which is then covered with drums and other instrumentation. Let me hear that again…yup, it’s soothing. You’ll be singing along like me, or making up your own words like me as Wendelbo takes a backseat to McBride this time as she circles around him with her wispy delivery. And that bassline that makes it to the surface around the 2:50 mark! WTF was that????? There goes that nostalgia but hot damn, it pops through again as the track closes out. If the band isn’t directly in your face, like on “Magic Of The Manifold,” with its drums that actually crack as Wendelbo waxes poetically and McBride’s delivery which is much less mechanical, soothing, like an 80s Phillip Oakey, it’s the atmospheric “Actor’s Foil.” While instruments don’t drift off, the keyboard wash allows percussion and synth notes to be carried along. But there’s much more here, so much more although there’s nothing quite like “Strange Fellows.” While it has a striking aesthetic that could allude to other things, this is Xeno & Oaklander, without a doubt. The song takes on a life of its own, flirting with shoegaze but staying true to itself. Both singers create a polyphonic texture with their respective vocals, intertwining them with such ease it doesn’t seem real. But it is.

If there’s anything to be taken aback by, it’s probably Via Negativa [in the doorway light] an album that’s consistent in its fluidity. And while it’s rooted in a synth/darkwave subgenre, Xeno & Oaklander aren’t bound by its restrictions, creating a mixture of sound(s) that appeal to many. Yeah, it’s easy to fall in love with this release.