Add N To (X)

Name-checking forebears from Varése and Xenakis to Robert Moog along with Can and Stereolab, Add N to X function as electro-historians who amass obsolete synthesizer gear while championing the man-machine ethos, an outlook vividly illustrated on the sleeve of their second album by the image of member Ann Shenton undergoing an operation in which a synthesizer is either implanted or extracted from her abdominal cavity. The group coalesced in 1993 after Shenton encountered Barry Smith, two devotees of the vintage-synth sounds and proto-electronica pioneered in the 1960s and ’70s by figures such as Wendy Carlos, Pierre Henry and Roxy Music. One year later, once they had adopted the name Add N to X, the pair enlisted theremin authority Steven Claydon and assembled an organic live rhythm section that featured Stereolab drummer Andy Ramsay alongside Rob Hallam of the High Llamas. Their first album, Vero Electronics, surfaced on Blow Up in 1996; subsequent U.S. dates drew more frequent comparisons to Suicide than to the stylistically aligned Tortoise. On the Wires of Our Nerves arrived in 1998, followed by Avant Hard in April 1999. The next year brought Add Insult to Injury, an album that steered the band toward a brighter, more pop-oriented approach.