@xcrswx is the duo of Crystabel Efemena Riley (human/drum-skin) and Seymour Wright (saxophone) both also working with digital, analogue and ANDROID technologies – live and in the studio. Together they create sound works, and ideas that they explain, are to do with: “(REFERENCES) a span of human traditions, technologies and applications from the menstrual-bloody origins of cosmetics through evolution of reeds/drumskin ritual/musics, to Samsung and Audacity tools and attachments, Crunchyrolls and sub-woofer succulence. It’s committed, collaborative work that draws on decades of other association (past and present: X-Ray Hex Tet, Maria & The Mirrors, GUO, أحمد [Ahmed], XT trios with Anne Gillis and RPBoo) and (MORE REFERENCES) glamour/talent, clean-beauty, smart-boards, teaching-teams, stages, studios and solos, but in terms of what comes out is a sui generis, exciting, radical, extreme, tender, physical and fresh synthesis, of beats, layers, and patterns of raw and polished sound”.

MOODBOARD is @xcrswx’s first 12” LP, following on from FIXES a 10” split (with Lolina) from 2023 and CALLTIME/HARD OUT, a 7” single from 2020 it completes a trilogy of releases on Feedback Moves. It extends the previous releases in exciting, new ways – presenting things on a scale where everything is greater, with extremes wider, rawer and deeper than on previous recordings. MOODBOARD is one long-form piece played across two sides, and, a suite of discrete, overlapping songs – OKIE EFE, NPC, P2W, REFERENCES, MORE REFERENCES, UFFIZI, THE CREATIVE DECK, OKIE EFE IVẸ – pulsing with the intensity of one of @xcrswx’s extraordinarily intense, physical, caring and socially-situated live shows, but employing hi- and lo-tech studio assembly, intervention, and re-invention to keep these two sides very much, and meticulously, produced – a record made.