X is Y: Summer and Winter Warfare (2013)

Sonoridades Math-Rock, paisajes cercanos al Post-Rock, la música de X is Y es un panorama relajado de paisajes guitarrísticos y panoramas amplios.

Global Times: Why did you decide to create the band? Why is it named X is Y?

Guillaume: The idea is to write songs in a way where we only have to be two to perform them. And this without using any effects pedals. Our efforts are placed on the songwriting and the performance. Also, being a two-piece makes it easier to practice, organize shows or play at venues with little audio equipment. Why did we name ourselves X is Y? It sounds cold and scientific and that's what we're going for.

GT: What inspired you to remix Summer and Winter Warfare? And what differences do you expect the audience will notice?

Guillaume: The record sounds a lot more indie rock, which fits our usual aesthetic better. The focus is now more on the vocals and the guitar. Also, it has been mastered in London at the Carvery on big studio gear. The result is you can hear everything clearly without having your ears stabbed with middles, which is pretty hard to achieve if you do you're mastering inside the box. Having your songs mastered in Europe or the US actually doesn't cost that much and makes a big difference. You just upload your tracks on a website and you'll receive it mastered a few days later. You can have your record mastered by the same guy who did Chelsea Light Moving for only a few dollars. We know we'll go down this road again for our next release.

GT: X is Y worked with Yang Haisong of P.K.14 this time. Can you tell us about the collaboration?

Guillaume: I've been recording, mixing and mastering the first two X is Y releases on my own. Having another producer working on our songs is an occasion to let go a little bit and see what happens. I've been a big fan of Haisong's production work for a long time. I love what he did with Carsick Cars, Birdstriking and Battle Cattle. You can recognize his production style pretty easily. So I was curious to hear what his take on our music would sound like. About the collaboration itself, we basically sent him the tracks, he mixed it in his studio in Beijing, and we asked for a couple of changes. It was done in a couple of days. He's super pro and efficient.

GT: Are there any new projects or albums in your schedule?

Guillaume:  We plan to do the tracking of our fourth record in November. We're more than excited about the new material. This time, we focused a lot more on the songwriting. We started writing folk songs a lot faster, an average of two new songs a week. And we did this for several months. So we had a lot of material to draw from. We're currently hard at work on the arrangements of four of these folk songs. We'll premier at least two new songs on the 26th of October at Uptown Records. Other than that, we'll be featured on a Maybe Mars compilation called The Sound of XP in the coming months. We'll have a new song released on Zang Nan's recordings compilation We are Shanghai vol 3. And I cowrote and recorded a folk album with Little Punk which will be released on Genjing records around January.