Xing Sa
Création de l'Univers

The Xing Sa are an emerging French trio, yes, that's right, "one of those bands dubbed as the 'next big thing', that you hear about and see hyped up on Pitchfork, pictured on the cover of Rolling Stone, or spotted in the gossip pages especially during the summer season, and whose songs are constantly aired on the radio, delighting drivers and passengers trapped in traffic with their lively, sunny, and entertaining melodies."

In reality, they are not quite as described above, but a bit different. The keyboardist Nicolas Goulay, bassist Christophe Blondel, and drummer Nicolas Candè form the classic avant-garde prog trio that makes the listener forget they lack the divine guitar. The most die-hard listeners of Cuneiform products have recently enjoyed another similar formation, the American Far Corner, with their respective stylistic differences.

Indeed, these Frenchmen, who feature Gilles Wolff on sax as a Special Guest, remain quite faithful to the musical currents of their homeland and neighboring states, with bass lines typical of the Franco-Belgian Avant-Rock that blend with a kind of keyboard-fusion reminiscent of not-too-obsessive instrumental parts of Zeuhl, particularly those developed in the late seventies and early eighties by bands like Eskaton (those of "4 Visions", minus the vocals to be more specific).

By "not too obsessive," I mean an entirely instrumental style that departs from the very dark tones of early Magma or Shub Niggurath but offers something that flows more pleasantly, still managing to create an eclectic yet tight musical combination, closer to what Potemkine proposes.

The French trio belongs to the new productions of the glorious Soleil Zeuhl label, mainly known for distributing the most interesting records of the genre founded by the reassuring "Kobaian" Christian Vander of Magma, among which, besides the already mentioned Eskaton and Potemkine, we must remember the masterpiece "Eros" by Dun.

"Création De l'Univers" is currently the only studio album produced by Xing Sa in 2010,  a concept instrumental as described by the title, based on the creation of the universe, divided into 13 tracks, further defined into 5 sections, namely "Feu", "Terre", "Metal", "Eau", "Bois",  songs that showcase the group's skill, succeeding in the arduous and rare task of recovering the albums of the Zeuhl masters, which have always been difficult to find, wiping off some of the dust accumulated over the years, and re-presenting it in a modern guise to some crazy person who still seeks something with an element of passion for the sophisticated and engaging, something that defies the loathsome "listen and discard" trend so popular in the new millennium.

The Segersian bass (Guy Segers from Univers Zero), the hypnotic Moog, and the jazzy trend of the drumming create a vortex of sounds and colors similar to the cover, elements that bring this splendid debut to life. Few but extremely memorable, the titles belonging to Soleil Zeuhl, to which this additional Transalpine product adds, among the new proposals noteworthy also the Scherzoo with "01".

Gourmet Stuff.