Back to Riot – “yeh, sex is great, but have you ever fucked the system?” accelerates past us in IXXF’s industrial soundscape that bounces and scratches to its heart's content. I like it. Also, those lyrics situate Pussy Riot and IXXF standing amongst protesters demanding human rights and to defund the police. Arguably, coronavirus has thrown class and race inequalities into stark relief. Black communities are, in the UK, statistically more likely to die of coronavirus, and this extends globally. Additionally, key worker jobs – like delivery drivers, builders or bin collectors – don’t afford the ‘luxury’ of working from home, putting a lethal edge on class divisions, as mixing can’t be avoided. So, yes, there is a reason to riot.
What I love about IXXF is their almost anarchic negation of a singular sense of identity that really contradicts the mainstream hype around superstar bloggers and celebrity music culture. They corrected my question “How was IXXF born?” to “were,” to make a plural agreement that took me a while to get my head around when they refer to themselves as ‘I’ rather than ‘we,’ and since PR sent me images of one artist. The picture from that puzzle I found was IXXF is plural, and don’t forget that. Here they are on lockdown, moody music and their impressive collaborators.