X-Legged Sally

X-Legged Sally (XLS) is a Belgian avant-garde rock/jazz-band founded in 1988 by composer Peter Vermeersch, and disbanded in 1997. They were one of the first bands from Belgium to combine a set of very different musical styles (jazz, rock, improvisation and classical), becoming a starting point for the Belgian indie music scene that developed in the nineties.

Biography

Initially, X-Legged Sally was formed to compose and perform the music Peter Vermeersch wrote for dance productions, such as Immer das Selbe Gelogen (Always the Same Lies), released as a live cd in 1991. Vermeersch' composing style was becoming too demanding for the constraints of sheet music such as was used in his earlier band Maximalist!. From the beginning, improvisation played an important role in XLS' songs. The first X-Legged Sally concert took place in November 1988. Soon, XLS became a band in its own right, although there would be cooperations with dance ensembles throughout the existence of the group.

Based on the international success of Maximalist!, X-Legged Sally had the chance to perform in the New York avant-garde Jazz club Knitting Factory, and a live track was included in the recording Live at the Knitting Factory, vol. 4 (1990). The New York connection proved fruitful, as the two first XLS recordings, Slow-Up (1991) and Killed by Charity (1993) were both produced by Bill Laswell. This also meant international attention and distribution, a rare thing for Belgian bands in the early nineties.