Back in the COVID era, which seems alternately like yesterday and a lifetime ago, XIXA songwriters Brian Lopez and Gabriel Sullivan were sifting through a stack of 30 demos going back to 2014.
“Just like musical demos, as in no lyrics or melody,” Lopez recalled. “We tried to whittle them down to 10 or 12, something that was like a cohesive album. ... It was just a bit overwhelming.”
XIXA (pronounced chee-cha) is releasing “XOLO” (cho-low) on Friday, March 21, with a concert at Rialto Theatre. From left, Winston Watson, Jason Urman, Brian Lopez and Gabriel Sullivan.
As they spitballed ideas, Lopez recalled a theater production he and Sullivan had seen during a 2011 tour in France; XIXA — pronounced CheeCha — has a big following in France and throughout Europe.
The Royal de Luxe play featured giant marionettes including a young girl about 40 feet tall and a hairless Mexican dog.
“There was not too much of a narrative around that, other than just the whimsical expression of these giant marionettes parading through the streets of Nantes, France, in front of 300,000 people,” Lopez said, but it was “enough to leave an indelible mark on the both of us. And I was like, why don’t we take that story and expand upon it?”
XIXA is releasing its third album, “XOLO,” on March 22 at a Rialto Theatre concert.
The result is “XOLO” — pronounced “ChoLow” — the band’s third album that follows a mythical tale of a young girl and her hairless dog navigating the Aztec underworld.
XIXA will release the album at a concert on Friday, March 21, at Rialto Theatre, 318 E. Congress St. The concert is a coproduction of Arizona Arts Live, the Rialto and Best Life Presents.
Lopez and Sullivan are the primary songwriters for the band (bass player Geoffrey Hidalgo, keyboardist Jason Urman, drummer Winston Watson and percussionist Miguel Melgoza), which they launched in 2013 as Chicha Dust. For “XOLO,” the follow-up to 2021’s critically-acclaimed sophomore album “Genesis,” they worked backwards, writing songs to fit the title.
“We’ve never done that,” Lopez said. “You’re always just trying to find new ways to get yourself in the zone and get yourself engaged as a writer because you know you can only do so many of the same tricks so many times. You want to pull something different out of yourself at some point. And that’s kind of what we did. We built this world around these two characters.”
XIXA songwriters Gabriel Sullivan, left, and Brian Lopez created a mythical tale of a cosmic dog leading his young master through the Aztec underworld in their new album “XOLO.”
The album unfolds like great theater as we explore the nine underworlds the girl, Arcoiris, and her cosmic canine guide El Xolo must traverse through the Aztec underworld of Mictlán. (Tucson vocalist Mona Chambers voices Arcoiris throughout the album.)
Songs represent chapters in the story, which moves along shifting musical moods, from the opening cumbia rocking track “Xoloitzcuintli” to the joyous “Heart of Gold” finale, with its balance of percussion rich cumbia and rock.
Arrangements flex between rhythmic cumbia rock, muscular psychedelia and strong flashes of punk especially evident on “It Doesn’t Matter,” featuring the distinctive vocals of Modern English’s Robbie Gray, with his bandmate Mick Conroy adding his signature synthesizers.
XIXA was first introduced to the Brit rockers in 2022, when they opened the band’s Southwest tour, including a date at Hotel Congress. Sullivan joined the band two years ago on guitar and had sent Gray the original lyrics for “It Doesn’t Matter” as the song was coming together.
“He really reimagined the chorus idea that Brian and I originally had,” Sullivan said. “And then Mick, the bass player, added his call it the synth storm. It’s kind of his signature thing.”
The song was already heading in the post-punk direction, Sullivan said, “but to get kind of the OGs, the kings of post punk, to feature on there was really amazing.”
XIXA recorded “XOLO” at the band’s Dust & Stone Recording Studio and mixed it in house. The album was released by New York-based Julian Records, which also released “Genesis.”
Friday’s concert at the Rialto begins at 8 p.m. with Phoenix psychedelia cumbia sextet Pijama Piyama opening. Tickets are $18 in advance through rialtotheatre.com.
