high energy Los Angeles based project by Panther Modern and Melissa Scaduto

Some bands find their groove and stick to it while others choose to reinvent themselves and keep on moving. Sextile can attest to the thrill of an ever-changing road map. The LA duo comprising Melissa Scaduto and Brady Keehn ply their trade with a lust for life and a love of everything from no wave to hardstyle, having merged some of these influences on their striking 2023 debut for Sacred Bones, Push.

The group’s new LP, Yes, Please, fuses anarchic electro fire with raw personal recollections —and enough beefed-up bass to bust a speaker or two. Yes, Please is an album of contrasts: a vulnerable record that bares its soul as much as it revels in excess, showing just how far you can push your sound when you shake off your inhibitions. Together, the pair betray a confidence that never wavers, making a bold splash on the speedy intro with a rave siren cut from a ‘00s New York house party. Seemingly by the same token, the unruly spirit of electroclash stalks the Yes, Please building, flashing its ID on the cowbell-peppered thunderbolts of “Freak Eyes” and “Rearrange”, and turning in a scuzzy dancefloor bomb with “Women Respond to Bass. High on endorphins, “Push-ups”—which features vocals from Jehnny Beth—is pure muscle music, fortified by hoover bass and fleshed out by synths that hammer as hard as lumps of hail on a glass roof.

Scaduto, who grew up in New York, and the Virginia-raised Keehn originally met in NYC before relocating to LA and forming Sextile. In 2015, they were joined by guitarist and synth player Eddie Wuebben, embracing “occult-inspired” post-punk for their debut album A Thousand Hands (2015), amping up the synths for 2017 follow-up Albeit Living, and leaning into this further for 2018’s electronically minded EP 3. Sextile went on hiatus following a difficult period marked by the tragic passing of Wuebben in October 2019. They later re-emerged with former bassist Cameron Michel on guitar and synths and released the "Modern Weekend" / "Contortion" single in 2022.

Sextile’s feverish debut for Sacred Bones, Push (2023), journeyed into the beating heart of the dancefloor with hardcore rave keys, chest-thumping bass workouts and a headstrong DIY ethic that has fuelled the band since their conception. This raw authenticity translates to their scene-stealing live shows, which dish up lose-your-shit-to energy and buoyant crowd interactions as they pull their audience into every scream; a group capable of bringing the house down just as well behind the decks or in full band mode.

It’s a given that experiencing Yes, Please in the flesh will give you chills. But behind the slogans, sass, and monster dance-punk energy also lies an intimacy that can only be found from opening up about painful, life-altering events.“Hospital” and “Soggy Newports” deal with Scaduto’s experience of being in a wheelchair in a NY state-run nursing home following an accident in which she almost lost her leg. The ballad-like “Soggy Newports” began life as a guitar-driven country song in 2011 when Scaduto was admitted to a facility on New York’s Roosevelt Island. Here she uses a confessional approach to address the deficiencies of America’s state-run medical care, filtered through her own harrowing experience of the system.

Elsewhere on Yes, Please, Scaduto and Keehn are eager to get things off their chest, exploring abortion rights (“Resist”), the pressure of making this record (“Freak Eyes”), and the particulars of US education systems, AI and future generations (“Penny Rose”). Throughout, Scaduto’s elastic vocals simmer like a secret sauce. On the leather-bound “S is For,” she pulls off couldn’t-give-a-fuck sing-speak à la scene queen Miss Kittin, luring us back to a pre-hipster Williamsburg of razor-sharp synths and bangs. But “Kids” is the trance-pop icing on top. Like magic, Scaduto reaches giddy new heights with her voice, building castles in the sky over a soaring chorus that also features Izzy Glaudini from LA trio Automatic.

So there you have it: Yes, Please is an action-packed dance record stuffed with wild, heady roof-raisers but is in the same breath a testament to living, and never looking back. In opening themselves up to a new “freeing” way of making music, Sextile have whipped up their most creative offering to date. Then again, you just know they still have so much more to give.

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Machine Girl - Montréal