X-RAY PRESS

Plenty of Swords review of UVB-76

xraypress — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:26:34 +0000

Eerie coincidence? 1 year and 11 days after the release of UVB-76 on 1/11/11 we received a nice little review from Plenty of Swords’ blog. Read it here.

Winter Tour Cancelled

xraypress — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:32:34 +0000

Alas, we have some really unfortunate news. Paurl was hospitalized with pneumonia which brought about some complications. He’s doing much better now and is out of the ICU (after ten days in it), but we have to cancel the entire tour this winter. We shall return once everyone is proper working condition.

The extended family is playing next week… Mike Sparks with By Sunlight at Chop Suey on Wed 1/25 and Kelly Myne with Panther Attack on Thu 1/26 at Sunset Tavern. Kelly Wyse and Adam Kozie with Pollens at Neumos on Tues. Jan 31.

Go to live shows. Interact. Create more art.

Winter Tour 2012

xraypress — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:40:42 +0000

Jan 25 – Seattle @ Chop Suey w. By Sunlight and White Coward
Jan 27 – Portland @ East End w. Wax Fingers and Hello Electric
Jan 29 – Sacramento @ Luigi’s w. The Speed of Sound in Seawater
Jan 31 – Oakland @ Stork Club w. B. Hamilton, So Quartet and Tastyville
Feb 1 – Los Angeles @ Silverlake Lounge w. TS and the Past Haunts and Heywood
Feb 2 – San Diego @ Soda Bar w. Sleep Lady and Burning of Rome
Feb 4 – San Francisco @ Hemlock Tavern w. Mist Giant and Hurry Up Shotgun
Feb 6 – Chico @ Babylon Arts Center w. La Fin du Monde and Goat
Feb 8 – Portland @ Ella St. Social Club w. U Sco and The Early
Feb 9 – Seattle @ Black Lodge w. to be announced
Feb 10 – Bellevue @ Ground Zero w. Angry Natives, Case&Ctrl, and Caboose

Vote for X-Ray Press “Artist of the Month” on The Deli

xraypress — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 23:02:30 +0000

The Deli is a great supporter of the local scene and really does a great job of covering local emerging artists. Help yourselves by helping them help us and vote yours truly (X-Ray Press, duh) as “Artist of the Month.” Because we’re fuckin’ artists. And our guitars are the paint brushes that Bob Ross happy little trees of sonic landscape in your ear canvases (in this sentence, and from now on, “Bob Ross” is a verb). Click here to cast your vote

Wired magazine article on the actual UVB-76

xraypress — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 22:09:09 +0000

WIRED magazine ran an article in their October 2011 issue about the actual UVB-76 shortwave radio station in Russia. The piece by Peter Savodnik talks about its bizarre influence on musicians and mentions X-Ray Press.

A fact checker from WIRED contacted us to see if we actually sampled the buzzing of the radio station on the album since the opening and closing tracks sound remarkably similar (listen to it here). We assumed we wrote ourselves out of the article being that the short answer was “no”, but we’re happy just to get a small mention. Here’s the full story on how UVB-76 entered the picture, as e-mailed to the magazine:

“Everybody, This is Everyone” was written, completed, and a common set starter in our live show for about a two years prior to the completion of the album. When we began conceptualizing musical themes and motifs for the full-length, the introductory “buzzes” to that tune quickly emerged as something to play around with because of how unending they sounded, almost in looming way.

We initially envisioned it as a broken traffic light (which was the working title of the song for a while). A red light that just flickers on and off at night, not really knowing whether to stop or go. That song, and its album-ending counterpoint both feature that constant ring.

The name of the album was decided after it had been mastered even (we were very indecisive about it). We eventually named the album “UVB-76″ more to compliment the “we’ll never figure this out” lyrical themes of the album. Our drummer stumbled upon the Russian radio transmitter online one day and it just seemed to fit the tone of it all. Cryptic and mysterious but very in-your-face and hard to ignore.

When I did some further research on how the buzzes sounded in real life I was floored. We some how managed to nearly recreate the exact intervals of the radio station. It was a strange and eerie coincidence and we ran with it. A lot of reviewers have assumed that we deliberately copied the “buzzing”, but it was very fortuitous. Just goes to show how mysterious UVB-76 really is.

Winter Tour in the Works

xraypress — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:15:59 +0000

Tour upcoming with a split under our arms. Full details to come soon. We’ll be bouncing down the West coast and back through February 11. We’ll fill in the dates as they come in. Look out in Portland, Chico, Sacramento, Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, L.A., San Diego and more… currently taking off-the-beaten-path city requests as well.

Recording this August for Split 7″

xraypress — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 01:21:58 +0000

We think you’ll totally dig the song we’re recording for the split. Newest song writing partners Mike Sparks (of By Sunlight) and Kelly Mynes (of Panther Attack!) are making their indelible imprint on the X-Ray Press sound. In the meantime, go to the By Sunlight/Panther Attack show with West coast friends Silian Rail and Summer Darling at Chop Suey on 8/14.

New sounds in the works

xraypress — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 23:07:05 +0000

New sounds being created right now (in Panther Attack’s basement, too). Aiming for a split later this year as well as another tour. Keep your ears to the ground. And in the meantime, click the squares make some music yourself: http://safe.tumblr.com/safe/video/2509512839/500

XRP Extended Family: By Sunlight at the Black Lodge and The Curious Mystery on tour

xraypress — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:59:35 +0000

X-Ray Press guitarist/keyboardist Mike Sparks will be performing with the amazing By Sunlight on Sunday, April 10th at the Black Lodge in Seattle. http://on.fb.me/fS2AwW

X-Ray Press drummer Adam Kozie is currently on a national tour with The Curious Mystery and will be playing the East Coast this week. http://bit.ly/i6Ny9x

XRP Extended Family: Performance art this week

xraypress — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 02:11:49 +0000

Actually Really
March 17-19, Northwest Film Forum

Dancer/choreographer Ezra Dickinson and musician/sound-artist Paurl Walsh create a visual and sonic environment that is directly and kinetically linked to the performance onstage. Employing new technology, Dickenson’s movement becomes the instrument through which Walsh’s sound is created. Together they build an exciting story that explores the making of the work itself. Dickinson has worked with Maureen Whiting Company, Dayna Hanson and Zoe Scofield; Paurl Walsh has been a core member of the hyper-experimental performance art/music group Degenerate Art Ensemble, designed and produced music for the theater group Implied Violence, and can most often be seen performing in the prog-punk outfit X-Ray Press.

http://nwfilmforum.org/live/page/calendar/1525