scott schultz

Xu Xu Fang squeezed their seven musicians onto the petite Viper Room stage on Monday night to celebrating the release of their awesome new The Mourning Son EP. Though the crowded stage left little room for movement, they filled the void with enough fog to cause a Grapevine pileup—it was beautifully gloomy noise. With three shoegaze guitars, a pounding rythym section, ethereal keyboards and the restrained vocals of singer Barbara Cohen, Xu Xu Fang have one of the more unique sounds in Los Angeles right now. They sounded great, but after listening to their CD, I feel that I probably didn’t see them at their best due to the cramped conditions. (It also doesn’t help that I quit smoking three days ago and forgot to wear my patch.) But I could tell that from the cluster of musicians behind Cohen—I didn’t even see the drummer until 30 minutes in—that I’ll need to see them on a bigger stage to truly experience the band. In the meantime, I’ll have to settle for listening to The Mourning Son with headphones on full blast, and looking forward to their upcoming club dates this summer.

—Scott Schultz

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