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Cex Information
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'Cex' is a musical project helmed by Rjyan Kidwell and started in 1999. Although Cex and Kidwell are frequently used interchangeably, Cex occasionally expands to several people at sporadic points, such as particular tours or albums. In the past it has included Kidwell's musical associates, friends, touring partners, or high school bandmates.
* CEX is also the abbreviation used by UK electronics retailer Computer Exchange Ltd
History
The first Cex album, Cells, was a compilation of tracks Kidwell had been working on for several years, and was released in 1998 by his own CD-R label, Underscore, while he was still at Dulaney High School in Timonium, Maryland. The following year, Kidwell met Miguel Depedro (Kid 606) and the two founded Tigerbeat6, a record label which would be among the vanguards of the electronica movement at the time. The next Cex album, Role Model, was one of the label's first releases (2000), and was quickly followed up the next year with Oops! I Did It Again. Oops! not only stole its title from the Britney Spears album, but played around with the title by depicting photos of the aftermath of a murder on the cover art.
All of the Cex releases up to this time were classified as IDM (Intelligent dance music) and had very little vocals or lyrics for the most part. However, Kidwell was not content to stay behind the laptop while on tour, and quickly and openly aspired to become "#1 Entertainer". He started to hone freestyling skills and performing new songs with vocal tracks like "who's the man with no clothes, underwear, fur coat, chilling in the alley?/I'm the man with no clothes, underwear, fur coat/I'm brandishing knives!" ("Fur Coat") and "I know you're stressed/'cause there's only one Cex/and your girlfriend's pissed/'cause you ain't him" ("One Cex"). His vocal style was very confrontational and nearly atonal, and contained typically outrageous bragadoccio; he frequently would go out of his way to chat to his audience between or in the middle of songs, and was known to strip down to his underwear (or less) from time to time. In 2002, he won a coveted tour spot opening for the East Coast leg of the Death and Dismemberment tour with Death Cab for Cutie and old friends from Washington, DC The Dismemberment Plan. Later that year, Tall, Dark, and Handcuffed, his first album with full vocals, was released. He continued to open for noted bands such as Super Furry Animals and The Roots, as well as musical friends Grand Buffet.
2003 was a pivotal year for Kidwell - after spending his entire life living in or around Baltimore, he packed up and drove out to Oakland, California. Car malfunctions and a week stranded in the western US became the inspiration for his second album of that year, Maryland Mansions. In April, he gained further exposure opening for indie darlings The Postal Service. Before this, however, he released Being Ridden in both vocal and instrumental form. The album cover paid homage to David Bowie, imitating the cover for "Heroes". Also notably, the album was not released by Tigerbeat6, and it seemed to have largely abandoned both the IDM and jokey old-school hip-hop of Tall, Dark, and Handcuffed for rawer sounds and themes. Maryland Mansions, an album about suicide, pushed those motifs further and was modelled somewhat on the Nine Inch Nails EP Broken, and was released just around the time that Kidwell returned to Baltimore. Two music videos for Maryland Mansions were released early in 2004, and Kidwell moved again, to Chicago a few months later.
Shortly thereafter, he married Roby Newton (from the band Milemarker), and reorganized Cex as a three-piece: Kidwell, Newton, and Cale Parks (from the bands Joan of Arc and Aloha). This configuration released an EP, Know Doubt, in 2005 on a Chicago label called Record Label. The next and supposedly final () Cex album is titled Actual Fucking and will be released February 14th, 2006. Each track is named after and written about a city (Baltimore, Los Angeles, Denton, etc). The album is heavy on vocals and will be released by Seattle label Automation Records.
Kidwell is said to be planning on concentrating on a newly-formed side project by the name of Sand Cats in the future, described as being "a solo project for two people", his wife and himself. They moved back to Baltimore in 2005.
Discography
Full albums
* Cells (1998 Underscore Records)
* Role Model (2000 Tigerbeat6 Records)
* Oops, I Did It Again! (2001 Tigerbeat6 Records)
* Tall, Dark, & Handcuffed (2002 Tigerbeat6 Records)
* Being Ridden (2003 Temporary Residence Ltd.)
* BR Instrumentals (2003 Temporary Residence Ltd.)
* Maryland Mansions (2003 Jade Tree Records)
* Actual Fucking (2006 Automation Records)
EPs
* Get Yr Badass On EP (2000 555 Recordings of Leeds)
* Role Playa EP (2000 Tigerbeat6/555 Recordings of Leeds)
* Starship Galactica (2001 555 Recordings of Leeds)
* Oops, I Did It Again! EP (2001 Tigerbeat6 Records)
* Know Doubt (2005 Record Label)
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