Oh dear, they're back. Xinlisupreme are my favourite japanese noisegazing (let's create new labels) band. They're debut album, Tomorrow Never Comes was a brilliant dive into ethereal music and tragic pieces -"Fatal Sisters Opened Umbrella" still gives me the creeps- drenched in reverb and crumbling walls of guitars. Their second release, Murder License was meaner and angrier, like a less poppy Atari Teenage Riot -if you've heard ATR before, i think you get the point. And well, i hadn't heard from them in a while, thinking that they had fallen in deep oblivion...

and Yasumi Okano sent me a message.

hello Barbara,

xinlisupreme released  free online  new single "Zouave`s Blue" at ( http://xinlisupreme.fc2web.com/index.html ).
Please listen when it is good.
Please let your friend listen to this song if you like.

good day and happy new year, Barbara
yasumi okano

I listen when it is good, and i enjoy it quite a bit. There are two versions of the song, a very noisy "alternative version" filled with flanger and tough beats and an "online single version", less noisy but still very dense. It sounds less angry than Murder License, a bit more epic than Tomorrow Never Comes, with catchy beats and impressive guitar lines stolen from Kevin Shields' songbook flooded under reverb and noise, catchy keyboards and a girl talking in the room two floors below the studio. It's great, it's free, and they're recording a new album.

-Barbara H

/jan 15th 2005/