The last record of new songs by XTC came out in 2000, about 22 years after the first one. In the intervening decade and a half, cofounder Andy Partridge has acted as a steward of his band’s legacy—overseeing reissues, remasters, and maintaining a vivid, gregarious web presence. It’s not quite as good as if he were making new music, but for his fans, who tend to be devout, it will do.
The end of March saw the publication of Complicated Game, a book-length interview between Partridge and engineer/writer Todd Bernhardt, compiled over the course of several years, that goes deep into the specifics of Partridge’s songwriting process, song by song. For XTC adepts, the book will be sacramental. But even those who are merely interested in songwriting as a craft will find a wealth of insight and wit, and a revealing dialectic between self-awareness and self-effacement in Partridge’s memory bank withdrawals…
