Xaxis Wye

“Spirit.” Rusty machine clouds rumbling. A funeral for the last tree on earth. “Benefactor.” Dance music for zombie robots. “Rivet.” Underwater alarms. Drowning panic. “Visage of Contact.” Dead machines rising from rusted over sharp edged metal graveyards. Those are some transcriptions of the feelings and visions I get as I listen to the tracks at Xaxis Wye’s website.

Xaxis Wye’s is Seattle-based musician and video maker Jeff Mueller who uses “sound collage, improvisation, drum machines, synthesizers and live instruments to sculpt morphing pieces straddling the line between musique concrete and dance music.” A former member of industrial duo Necrosis, Jeff started releasing music under the Xaxis Wye moniker in 1996, “combining improvisational synthesizer and sound collage with meditation and chant inspired by eastern philosophy.”

Fleshout.

Mueller has also done some interesting work with Butoh performers. For those not familiar,
Butoh.net describes it as “a contemporary avant-garde dance form which originated in Japan and which was first performed there in 1959. It combines dance, theater, improvisation and influences of Japanese traditional performing arts with German Expressionist dance (Neue Tanz) and performance art to create a unique performing art form that is both controversial and universal in its expression.” The Butoh collaborations evoke ectoplasm and etheric planes, the dusty rooms of mediumistic table raps.

Here are two Butoh videos. The first with video and music by Xaxis Wye, the Butoh performance by Briana Chittenden, the second with video and music again by Xaxis Wye, the Butoh performance by Alan Sutherland, Ariel Denham, Kaia Selene, Douglas Ridings, Alex Haverfield and Vanessa Skantze.

Rising Waters.

Burning Silence.