I still recall seeing Xinombra playing out an awards ceremony event in Sweden in what will be seven years ago this year.
Totally unexpectedly they played from a stage that looked like it had been copied from the set of ‘Alien’, (probably courtesy of vocalist Peter Endahl who is also an established artist and works with painting and metal sculpture, typically industrial and dark, and with features of expressionism, putting huge effort and professionalism into what was the last performance of the day with the venue janitor glancing frequently at his watch.
All that was missing was Sigourney Weaver in her bra and panties, but that’s another story.
It was patently obvious then that Xinombra is a band for deep thinkers and they’ve produced a wide range of themed albums and live performances of heavy rock music based on, amongst others, Harry Martinson’s Aniara (from where I assume they took their name as it appears in the original poem) and poetry by Gunnar Ekelöf, Edith Södergran, Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Baudelaire.
Incidentally, just a little note about Aniara. It is a space epic set in a dystopian future where Earth is uninhabitable. The poem tells of the mass migration from Earth to Mars on the spaceship Aniara, which is decaying as it travels through space.
Aniara was adapted into a film in 1956 (and remade in 2018), 11 years before the British film Quatermass and the Pit, in which a spaceship is discovered buried beneath a London tube station; one that had carried Martians to Earth as their own planet died. I wonder where they got that idea from?
Xinombra’s last performance was based on Mare Kandre’s dark novel Aliide, Aliide, a difficult piece about an eight year old girl coming to terms with the ways of the world and which they honoured with a concept album and numerous visually intriguing music videos.
You know, bands like this used to exist when I was a kid in the UK, often taking progressive rock a stage further and usually neither I nor any anyone else had a clue what it was about. It was enough to know you had been in the presence of something deeply meaningful even if you didn’t get it and the best you could do was to nod along approvingly at anyone else’s interpretations, no matter how inane they were.
Now Xinombra follows up on the Mare Kandre project with the new single ‘Dysfori’, which has just been released. ‘Dysfori’ is Swedish for dysphoria, the worst degree of depression that you can get into and not that far removed from catatonia (not the Welsh band, sorry Cerys).
So it is about mental illness and the outward, impenetrable façade that people can wear on their face, while self-harming behaviour simmers in the background to keep the pain at bay.
“In the cold gaze there is the fear of another now/in the cold gaze there is a masked rage/Nowhere to hide”
“I watch as you fall apart/falling into a pitch black hole”
“I look at your total coldness/for a world in total misery”
How do you convey such complex emotions through music? You do it by recording something that sounds like a runaway train driven by someone that’s lost their mind, impossible to corral and subdue.
Just like this in fact:
Musicians appearing on ‘Dysfori’ are:
Peter Endahl (vocals)
Ronny Rasmusson (guitar)
Johan Nordström (guitar)
Peter Lundström (bass)
Bengt Westin (drums)
Rebecca Warldén (vocals).
Peter Endahl and Ronny Rasmusson wrote the song and have filmed, edited and cut the music video, which premieres soon. The moment it is out it will be here.
Find them on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/xinombra
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xinombra/
