Based in Seattle, Foxxxy Mulder is duo David Kumler and Kori Hensell who combine post-punk and dream pop to conjure a sound so black it shimmers. Latest release Controlled Collapse serves as the ideal introduction for the uninitiated, a collection of songs at once intense in their tenebrous energy yet lonely and spacious too. The goth paradox where everything is felt intensely, and nothing is felt at all.
Take opener ‘Apocalypse’, with its gliding synths and cold expanses, a nocturnal clamour of ghosts. ‘Illusions’ with its ominous forward motion and threat to unravel, or ‘Pity’ and the despondent nature of its futuristic stylings. “Just let the world smoulder,” Hensell sings on the latter, voice rising from murmur to croon. “Cause even monsters and gods and flames grow old and grow colder.” With Controlled Collapse, Foxxxy Mulder find beauty in the dimming light, the sparkle and shine as the world itself ices over.
Though the mood and themes are very much consistent, there is one notable departure in style on the record. Described by the band as ‘rhinestone dream pop’, ‘Vengeance’ drops the angular guitars and black crystal synths in favour of a country-inflected warble. A murder ballad come revenge tale which sways inside its sedated haze as guitars and synths ebb and flow around it, coming to possess a Lynchian blend of sinuous beauty and all-American dread.
The mood is only accentuated by Kumler’s video, which juxtaposes the languorous track with the kinetic energy of the rodeo. In much the same way as the country sensibility of the sound, the result positionx the song within the American experience, just another country where pomp and ceremony and dumb masculine violence are coded deep within in the DNA.
Controlled Collapse is out now and available from the Foxxxy Mulder Bandcamp page.