Friday 10/9: Xyla—"Waves"
Today, we share our thoughts on a new song by the San Francisco electronic artist Xyla.
Welcome to Endless Scroll, the brainchild of Eli Enis (he/him) and Eric Bennett (they/them). Since Feb. 2019, we’ve been a weekly podcast about music, the internet, and where those two things intersect. Now we’re, also a M-F newsletter about songs. Our format is simple: a link to a song and a short take from each of us about what we think of it. Each day of the week has a corresponding genre: Monday is indie, Tuesday is punk, Wednesday is hip-hop, Thursday is pop, and Friday is misc.
Today, we share our thoughts on a new song by the San Francisco electronic artist Xyla.
Xyla—"Waves"
Eric Bennett:
For me, a person with a couple different forms of synesthesia, this song is a total trip, and exceedingly vivid. There’s color within every song that feels obvious, but only because I am the one experiencing it. The urge to describe things as our weird cross-wired brains interpret them is a common problem for synesthetes. It’s hard to get across what you mean by “this feels like, deep blue” to someone without the same quirk. Hell, even trying to explain your experience to other synesthetes isn’t satisfying because no perception is universal.
That said, I’m going to just convey how this looks and feels to me, whether or not you get anything out of it. “Ways” is a lovely melange of rosy pink, yellow gold, and neon green. The electronic chimes that begin the track are absolutely lovely, and radiate gold as they briefly echo out. The scattered drum track at the song’s core are such a bright green that the only comparison I have is the color of radioactive waste you’d see in a cartoon. Finally, Xyla’s wafts of vocals come over the piece as waves of faded pink, almost mauve. It’s as much a gorgeous composition for the ear as it is the mind’s eye.
Eli Enis:
According to their Bandcamp, Xyla is a classical musician-turned-electronic producer from San Francisco and “Ways” is the title-track from their first proper album, out later this month via the L.A. experimental label Leaving Records. As Eric described beautifully, Xyla’s sound is incredibly colorful and expressive, but it’s also refreshingly hard to pin down genre-wise. The track begins with a shifty beat, a vocal hovering in the back of the mix, and little dinging effects that sound kind of like Mario coins. Then, a rambunctious footwork drum pattern is introduced that ends up dancing and boogying around the composition for the rest of its runtime. However, the gleaming synths that sparkle behind have an ambient resonance akin to Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. It’s a tickling fusion of sounds, and I can’t wait to hear how it fits into the rest of the record.