Some bands take a while to get to where they're going, while others find it and then spend time perfecting it, not giving a care if the world notices. Circle X falls into the latter category, originally consisting of singer Tony Pinotti, singer/guitarist Bruce Witsiepe, guitarist Rik Letendre, and his brother Dave on drums. Forming in the late '70s in Louisville, KY, the quartet then relocated to New York and fell in with the no-wave crowd (Mars, DNA, and the like). The result was a constant expansion of their sound and style, incorporating everything from performance art to synths and keyboards (with Pinotti in particular anchoring the latter) in the service of their edgy, often quite listener-unfriendly material. An album, Prehistory, crept out in 1983 on Enigma, but aside from random performance recordings, singles, and other projects (even a book), Circle X remained strictly out of sight, out of mind even for most extreme music fans until the early '90s. At that time, following a variety of side projects and some lineup shuffling, drummer Martin Kob replaced Dave Letendre, while Rik was firmly settled on bass. This lineup released a series of singles, collected and boxed as The Ivory Tower in 1993, leading to only the second full album in the group's history, Celestial, appearing on Matador in 1994. ~ Ned Raggett, Rovi