Clan of Xymox

All Music Guide:

Clan of Xymox have been in the unfortunate position of always being compared to other bands since their inception. Whether it's the Cure or Joy Division, Clan of Xymox have never been able to shake off the similarities to their influences. Nevertheless, the group has produced an impressive body of work that consistently absorbed new sounds while remaining faithful to the '80s goth rock menu.

Clan of Xymox were formed in Nijmegen, Netherlands, in 1983 by Ronny Moorings (vocals, guitar) and Anka Wolbert (bass, vocals). A year later, Moorings and Wolbert moved to Amsterdam, releasing the LP Subsequent Pleasures as Xymox. (The album was limited to 500 copies.) Xymox then became the opening act for Dead Can Dance in England. The band's presence on Dead Can Dance's U.K. tour caught the interest of 4AD Records, and the label eventually signed them. A year later, Xymox lengthened their name to Clan of Xymox and recorded a self-titled album in 1985, followed by Medusa the next year. In 1987, the group shortened its appellation to Xymox once again, contributing another version of "Muscoviet Mosquito," originally on Subsequent Pleasures, to the 4AD compilation Lonely Is an Eyesore. After the release of the single "Blind Hearts," Xymox left 4AD and joined Polygram/Wing.

In 1989, Xymox released Twist of Shadows, their most commercially successful LP, selling 300,000 copies. The infectious and uncharacteristically upbeat "Phoenix of My Heart" landed on the modern rock charts in 1991. However, the full-length Phoenix didn't do as well as Twist of Shadows. Wolbert departed from the band that year, replaced by bassist Mojca Zugna. In 1992, Xymox left Polygram/Wing for ZOK Records. Xymox record two albums for ZOK Records -- 1992's Metamorphosis and 1993's Headclouds -- before switching to Tess Records in 1997 for the album Hidden Faces. Moreover, Moorings called the group Clan of Xymox once again.

In 1999, they signed with the Metropolis label and released Creatures, which was followed a year later by the two-CD Live. The 2001 album Notes from the Underground was reinterpreted on the double remix CD Remixes from the Underground, which landed in 2002. Farewell from 2003 was a themed album with bittersweet goodbyes to lovers and friends the main topics. The 2004 collection The Best of Clan of Xymox found latter-day highlights next to re-recordings of the band's early material. Two years later, the album Breaking Point was announced by the single "Weak in My Knees." The 2009 effort In Love We Trust was a return to the layered sound of their 4AD years.

Wikipedia:

The band Clan of Xymox, also known as simply Xymox, formed in the Netherlands in 1981. Clan Of Xymox featured a trio of songwriters - Pieter Nooten, Ronny Moorings and Anke [also Anka] Wolbert - and gained success in the 1980s, releasing their first two albums on a prestigious independent UK label, a third and fourth album on a major US label and scoring a hit single in the United States. Early pioneers of the dark and moody electronic music known as darkwave, their 1980s releases included synthpop/electronic dance music.

Though the band is still active and continues to tour and release records, of the original songwriters (Nooten, Moorings, and Wolbert), only Moorings remains in the band today. After the departure of Nooten and Wolbert in the early 1990s, their music turned increasingly goth.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Contents

History[edit]

4AD and the Peel Sessions (1981–1988)[edit]

The band formed in Nijmegen in 1981, consisting of Ronny Moorings, Anka Wolbert, Frank Weyzig, and Pieter Nooten, - and released a mini-album, Subsequent Pleasures, in 1983. They were invited by Brendan Perry to support Dead Can Dance and were signed to the indie label 4AD, which released their eponymous debut album in 1985. The track 7th Time, with Anka Wolbert on lead vocals, was picked up by John Peel, leading to the band recording two of the Peel Sessions at the BBC, in June and November 1985. Peel referred to the band's dark and melancholic sound as "darkwave".

In 1986 they released their second and last album on 4AD, Medusa, before signing with PolyGram. Simultaneously, Pieter Nooten recorded and released his album Sleeps With The Fishes (4AD, 1987), in collaboration with Canadian session musician Michael Brook. In a 2010 interview with AlterNation Magazine, Moorings expressed disappointment at the divided interests of the band members at this stage, exclaiming Medusa's follow-up album was "made entirely independently, without the rest of the musicians, who were then on vacation."

PolyGram and International Success (1988–1991)[edit]

Now abbreviated as Xymox, the band's third album, Twist of Shadows, was released in 1989. This album, and its successor Phoenix, were released by Wing Records, a subsidiary of Polydor Records/PolyGram. In the United States, these two albums created a cult following for the band. The first two singles taken from the Twist of Shadows album, Blind Hearts and Obsession proved college and club hits in the United States with Obsession charting on Billboard's Alternative Songs chart and both tracks hitting the Billboard Club Play Chart. It was the album’s third single, Imagination (with Anka Wolbert on lead vocals), that brought the band the most mainstream attention, charting at No. 85 on Billboard Hot 100, generating Top 40 radio airplay and MTV rotation of the Imagination (Edit) single video. Twist of Shadows proved their most commercially successful album, selling more than 300,000 copies worldwide.

By this time the band had moved to England, and released their fourth album, Phoenix, on PolyGram in 1991; after this album, Anka Wolbert and Pieter Nooten left the band due to disagreements about the band's musical direction.

Independent Labels and Move to Germany (1991–2013)[edit]

Xymox, without Nooten and Wolbert, left PolyGram to release the dance-oriented LPs Metamorphosis (1992) and Headclouds (1993) independently. Ronny Moorings toured under the banner of Xymox until 1995 with an evolving cast of live musicians, including girlfriend and future band member Mojca Zugna. Frank Weyzig parted ways with Moorings after the 1994 tour.

Capitalizing on a resurgence in the popularity of gothic rock and the success of bands such as Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, and Rammstein, Moorings had, by the late 1990s, reverted the name to Clan of Xymox and moved to Germany - then the center of the burgeoning industrial music scene. Moorings recruited new live members and resumed touring, signing first with the independent US label Tess Records in 1997 then with Metropolis in 1998. The LPs Hidden Faces (1997), Creatures (1999) and Notes from the Underground (2001) reflect an increasingly electro sound while maintaining the distinctive dance rhythms associated with the Clan of Xymox catalog. In 1998, 4AD re-released Clan of Xymox and Medusa in the USA, and Xymox toured the United States the following year. The live band at that time consisted of Moorings, Mojca (bass), Rob Vonk (guitar), Sharon Soffner (keyboards), and Rui Ramos (drums). In October 2000 Xymox released Live, a double CD with nineteen tracks and two videos featuring live performances of Xymox songs from the 4AD, Polygram, and independent eras.

Following the moderate success of 2003's FareWell - which featured several popular tracks on the dance club and college radio circuits internationally, a Best Of Clan of Xymox album was released in September 2004, with re-recorded versions of early hits as well as later offerings.

Aided by social media, the early 2010s saw an expanding international activity of and interest in the band. In early 2009 Clan of Xymox switched European labels to Trisol Record, while remaining on Metropolis and Gravitator for US and Russian releases, respectively. In 2011 Clan of Xymox released a new album, "Darkest Hour", which featured an instrumental track that would later be included on the soundtrack to David Fincher's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011 film)". In 2012 the band released a well-received cover album, Kindred Spirits, (CD, Metropolis Records 2012) featuring covers of several influential postpunk and new wave groups in Mooring's own musical styling.

Clan of Xymox is a regular headliner for several annual international alternative music festivals, including M'era Luna Festival in Hildesheim, Germany, Triton Festival in New York City, Summer Darkness in Utrecht, Netherlands, Whitby Gothic Weekend in Whitby, England, and the largest - Wave-Gotik-Treffen, in Moorings' home of Leipzig, Germany.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).