THE REX COMPLEX

By LUKE O'NEIL

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Forget everything you know about eclecticism in music, because Boston's The Rex Complex is about to blow up your spot. The inventive and genre-tripping duo, comprised of multi-instrumentalist Rex Hussmann and drummer Jeremy Gustin, is set to release their first self-titled record—a style implosion that taps a kitchen-sink sonic palate.

"We're calling it 'roots ruckus' right now," says Hussmann. One of the driving forces behind their outside-the-box approach, which moves from the country twang of "Stone Walls and Steel Bars" to the tribal-rhythm blues of "Kudzu Killer," is what Hussman calls "that warm, wood sound of the upright bass and gyil tied to the sharper aggressive sounds of electric guitar and drums." The gyil is a type of balafone or African xylophone from Ghana.

Their knowledge of the obscure instrument came from a trip they took to Ghana to study music for three months. "The people, culture and music made a big impact on us," says Gustin. "Rex spent the last month in the north studying the gyil, while I was in the south studying stick drumming. For the most part, it opened me up to many dynamic and rhythmic possibilities. We're not directly quoting Ghanaian music or thinking of ourselves as world music. We might be pulling from that inspiration, performing with these masters. But it's a loose connection. The main reason we use the gyil is because it has such a beautiful, unique sound."

"I learned so much," says Hussmann. "How they interact with music over there, like it's just a part of their lives, I learned not to take myself so seriously."

That comes through in the band's sense of oddball, lyrical humor. Hussmann adds, "Jeremy and I both tend to steer towards the darker side of humor. There are a lot of strange themes—such as eating cats, and preachers selling asthma dust—but we also touch on emotional topics. We like to mix up dreams and reality. That's one of the best aspects of songwriting to me. Bringing out what happens in your dreams into something that carries over into something you can hear and feel."

THE REX COMPLEX

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