“Death is not final, only a misunderstanding of time.” So sayeth the voice looming above Shackleton and Vengeance Tenfold’s ‘Death is not Final’, the 9th Skull Disco cut Appleblim and co released into the world like a creeping, green kill cloud back in early spring. Having no recollection of a first-hand death experience NPIP may be getting ahead of itself, but as ready as we are to wire up to sub-bass for sunk-eyed excursions ‘round this city it’s good to know there’s something else down there in the dirt and the lost spaces, God forbid us dead boys and girls are ever in the mood to cross bones in a post-life futility fuck.

In truth, Xeno and Oaklander are sweeter than that curse, if no less haunted. There’s something in the naivety of synths that seem to strive to imagine the afterlife and the French language in general that immediately makes me think of death. Or dying, at least. For all the heavy talk, a remarkably sprightly beat kicks along somewhere out back, momentarily homing in on Dan Deacon as he sneaks below Paris to break the fourth wall for all the skulls awake and restless in the catacombs, an oafish Indiana tumbling down through ruins time-unbounded and a cobweb colony to return Trippy Green to whence he came, some neon rogue sat atop the Cotillion shooting looks into empty eyeholes surrounded by kohl, crossing-hands with the happy residue of Guy Debord as howls and screams clatter off distant walls to carouse with the aching, throbbing throng.

Xeno and Oaklander - Cèleste

'Cèleste' appears on Analogue Electronic Music 2008, the second compilation from Brooklyn's Wierd Records.