Xymox: Голланд тобының тарихы

Dutch rock band

Clan of Xymox, also known as simply Xymox, are a Dutch rock band formed in 1981 best known as pioneers of darkwave music. Clan of Xymox featured a trio of singer songwriters – Ronny Moorings, Anka Wolbert, and Pieter Nooten – and gained success in the 1980s, releasing their first two albums on 4AD, before releasing their third and fourth albums on Wing Records and scoring a hit single in the United States. The band is still active, continuing to tour and release records with Moorings as the sole remaining original member.

Clan of Xymox were formed in Nijmegen, Netherlands, in 1983 by Ronny Moorings (guitars, vocals) and Anka Wolbert (bass, vocals). Wolbert stated of the band's formation:

Ronny and I met as students in Nijmegen and we connected over our taste in music. We started making music together and picked up some equipment to experiment with, like the Korg MS 10 and a rhythm machine We started to perform live, just the two of us, changing instruments in between songs. While I had a bass guitar strapped around my neck and simultaneously hit the monophonic keyboard, Ronny played guitar and sang. We combined our sound with tape loops, a Casio, plus a few weird instruments. About a year later, Moorings and Wolbert moved to Amsterdam, where they joined Pieter Nooten (Moorings' Nijmegen flat mate) and Frank Weyzig, who added their own contributions. in 1983 the group released a five track EP titled Subsequent Pleasures, limited to 500 copies. 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. 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."

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. 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 Twist of Shadows proved their most commercially successful album, selling more than 300,000 copies worldwide.

Xymox collaborated with Japanese singer Atsushi Sakurai to create the song "Yokan" (予感) for the March 1992 compilation album Dance 2 Noise 002. Without Nooten and Wolbert, the group left PolyGram to release the UK acid house inspired LPs Metamorphosis (1992) and Headclouds (1993) independently. Frank Weyzig (the last of the original line up) parted ways with Moorings after the 1994 tour, after which Moorings moved back to the Netherlands and took a three year hiatus from music writing. Capitalizing on a resurgence in the popularity of gothic rock and the success of bands such as Nine Inch Nails and Rammstein, 1997 saw Moorings reverting the name to Clan of Xymox and moving to Germany – then the center of the burgeoning industrial music scene – to resume songwriting. Moorings recruited new live members and signed 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 October 2000 the band released Live, In September 2004, a Best of Clan of Xymox album was released with re recorded versions of early hits as well as later offerings. In 2011, the track "In Your Arms Again" from the LP Darkest Hour was included on the soundtrack to David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In 2012 the band released a cover album, Kindred Spirits, featuring covers of several influential post punk and new wave groups in Mooring's own musical styling. The songs "A Day", "Masquerade", and "Cry in the Wind" were featured on the official soundtrack to the 2014 film The Guest.

The band is referenced in the lyrics of the Half Man Half Biscuit song "Faithlift" from their 1995 album Some Call It Godcore.