XO – Stacian – Album Review

XO – Stacian – Album Review

https://stacian.bandcamp.com/album/xo

The first time I listened to XO by Stacian was the night I found out I was sick again.  Not the kind of sick that you heal with tea and rest but the kind where you sit on the floor and stare at the ceiling.  I hit play on XO and closed my eyes.  

The heavy synths of “Pandora’s Ear” dropped me into my feelings and held me.  A time warped synth wound an eerie high-pitched path over the bass.  An empty city at night flashed through my mind.  Bells clear and bright rang out over spell-like lyrics: “The light goes fast, as life goes by, your light with mine I clear my mind”.  

A tribute to her partner who unexpectedly died a year ago, XO channels the heavy cosmic reality of grief, love, and nonlinear time that we live in beyond the dazzling screens of technocapitalism.  Where the modern world has failed to offer us time and space to contemplate mortality XO opens a portal into the unknown.  

“Write Goodbye” pulled me ever deeper into my feelings.  Airy percussive sounds created by striking amethysts and rose quartz fluttered over brooding, seeking synths.  A singular bell invited the spirits into the song.  Disparate melodies intertwined and resolved into an uplifting moment.  “I’ll see you in outer space, so vast” Stacian promised.  

One day we will all return to the cosmos.  But in the meantime I am grateful for the soundtrack.  — V. Rose

Also on heavy rotation by Stacian:  her 2017 release Person L

https://stacian.bandcamp.com/album/person-l