When recording their EP ‘MKDRONE,’ duo Jeannie Colleene and Gavin Neves – a/k/a HXXS – were cramped in a San Jose warehouse, sharing a wall with a porn studio. Despite their vocal takes periodically interrupted by even louder and harsher vocal takes echoing in the halls, MKDRONE came together. When prescription medication became the only reprieve for an inoperable tooth infection that had one member sliding between unbearable pain and prescription-induced euphoria, the first single “Seppuku,” the historical Japanese term for suicide by disembowelment, came to fruition. But similar to life with no health insurance and recording music wedged in the walls of a porn studio, HXXS live somewhere between the uncomfortable and the alluring.

Their live show, which consists of any hardware they can get their hands on – drum machines, synthesizers, samplers – is built on loops, making the songs feverish and at times deliberately frenzied to a point of anxiety. However the duo anesthetize this angst with more subdued nods to electronic and post-punk acts of the 80’s, 90’s, 00’s and Present. While their music is undeniably erotic – a tip of the hat to their vocal San Jose neighbours – the EP is what happens when your intrigue with pop culture media and conspiracy theories from the 60’s to present turns obsession. Contemplating the bombardment of modern media and those ill served by it. Women, the LGBTQ+ community, people of colour, victims of white supremacy and the patriarchy.

TRACK LISTING

1. Seppuku
2. Witch Hunt
3. Vices
4. Dripping Mercury
5. Trippin
6. Widowmaker