XIU XIU
New Album
13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips
Out Now On Polyvinyl
ASSOCIATED PRESS: After 20 years and a move to Berlin, Xiu Xiu is still making music for outsiders
INTERVIEW MAGAZINE: Xiu Xiu and Vaginal Davis on Berlin, Bible-Thumpers, and Designer Drugs
PASTE: Xiu Xiu Scream Through Reality
POPMATTERS: IMPERMANENT CANDY: XIU XIU AIM FOR AN UNCOMPROMISING FUTURE
CONFIRMS ADDITIONAL WORLD TOUR DATES
(L-R: Jamie Stewart + Angela Seo of Xiu Xiu by Eva Luise Hoppe)
Praise for Xiu Xiu and 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips
Out Now on Polyvinyl:
“Noise pop experimentalists Xiu Xiu are back doing what they do best: writing a genuinely sticky, well-constructed tune and subsequently running it through a meat grinder. On ‘Common Loon,’ surprisingly gentle melodies collide with buzzsaw tones and maximalist production for one of Xiu Xiu’s most approachable songs since 2017’s Forget. All the more reason to look forward to the September 27th release of their new LP, 13″ Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips…Xiu Xiu evoke the post-punk masters of yore on ‘Veneficium,’ the potent second half of their new double A-side single. We’re hearing This Heat, Chrome… even a bit of Can-esque krautrock. Fuzzed-out bass and pocketed drums guide this alluring five-plus-minute track, another fine example of this band’s enduring artistry.” - Consequence
“Xiu Xiu’s two new tracks — released as a double single — sit opposite ends of the spectrum. While ‘Veneficium’ is an upbeat, raucous ride into the abyss, ‘Arp Omni’ is a slow, haunted love song — a ‘sweetie ballad about falling for a person who takes risks in life,’ according to the experimental rock trio. The song begins in pulsing darkness before the warm, gentle light of synth strings washes in. ‘With freckles as sparkling as yours / Who could dare to un-sparkle your dots,’ Jamie Stewart begins, his deep, quavering voice as shadowy as ever. After a series of similar professions, he turns his gaze inward. ‘I have done almost nothing right / My entire adult life / But having dared to touch the fire with you.’” - The FADER (Songs You Need In Your Life)
“An unpredictable mesh of chaos and is an absolute joy from start to finish.” - Far Out
“‘13” Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips’ is, with a few exceptions, driven by a maddened velocity with guitars and drums taking the wheel, an unconventionally conventional combo for the band...this is a sillier band than encountered last year when submerged within the auditory and thematic pitch-black darkness of Ignore Grief. This isn’t to say that glorious experimental industro-classical cacophony was abandoned entirely here. In fact, its often surprising appearance within the layered and dense-to-the-level-of-psychedelic production by Angela Seo and mix by John Congleton, who was encouraged to ‘go crazy’ and ‘choose iconoclasm,’ is what provides such a palpable sense of play throughout the album. The band seemingly tossed in whatever the fuck they felt like, from the static monitor switching feedback in ‘Pale Flower’ to the doodling flute-y noises at the end of ‘Sleep Blvd.’” - Filthy Dreams
“A stampede of gritty excess… Both raw and painstakingly detailed, the album conjures a feverish séance of distortion-overloaded maximalism. Yet simultaneously, it’s the most thoroughly pop-ish Xiu Xiu record in ages… A kinky labyrinth of hazy dreamworlds and volcanic desires…Most of its nine songs offer economic pop structures, infectious riffs, and catchy choruses. Noise rock and synth punk aesthetics coalesce into meticulously calibrated chaos. Arsenals of synths fire from all directions. Sounds toss across the stereo mix with the aerodynamic mobility of a dropkicked Looney Tunes character… This is the most grandiose Xiu Xiu’s sounded… It’s a delight to see a musician twenty-two years deep into their project still baffled by the sounds that sputter out of them.” - Our Culture
“For the winding path the project has taken over time, Xiu Xiu does not make ‘rock music’ in a traditional sense. In a post-genre landscape, where so many artists pride themselves on defying the labels we stick on music to digest and understand it, this band has always blended influences and sounds with abandon, usually leaving the guitar to play a fairly utilitarian role. Yet, from the opening notes of ‘Common Loon,’ the lead single from their latest LP 13″ Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips (named after a switchblade owned by Stewart), there are riffs front and center. I remarked to someone that it sounds exactly how the album’s cover looks—all metallic chrome with rainbow colors reflected back, a band of outsiders held together by the sound of that joyous guitar figure and the fizzling synths and glockenspiel hits that adorn it.” - Paste
“This is one of the prettiest and catchiest Xiu Xiu records, but the band’s signature blend of allure and menace remains intact… Uncompromising… one of the band’s very best.” - PopMatters
“It’s classic Xiu Xiu fair, the desire for love and its impossibilities to be truly reciprocated, but the way the instrumentation opens the lyrics up causes them to appear crushing. Even when playing to form the band is sharper than ever. Stewart’s lyrics appear so cutting that they threaten to leave the listener bleeding. Despite the brilliance of these tracks, ‘13” Stiletto’ is an album made significant in how it differs from what the band has done before. It brims with tension across its duels between accessibility and maximalism and in its mix of soaring guitars and industrial obliteration. The whole album is torn between that core Bargeld tension of being in a rock and roll band but by no means wanting to play rock and roll. It’s a gloriously complex and decadent yet digestible slab made by Xiu Xiu doing what they do best, taking a familiar sonic palette and distorting it through Jamie Stewart's distinct lens. Only this time the experiment has led to an exceptionally brilliant album. It's proof that despite over twenty years of noise-making Xiu Xiu are still as phenomenally tender and twisted as when they started.” - Post-Trash
“It may be the duo's most accessible album in years, but it sacrifices none of their signature weird intensity … its essence is no less visceral and heightened once you reach the centre… The album is industrial pop music, heavy synth glam, big riffs and capital letters… Each song is densely packed and dazzling, but sharper and more ambitious than ever – a credit to band member Angela Seo’s production and John Congleton’s mixing… The song’s enigma, attitude, and definition of queerness as delicious and unsettled (‘Cool/Impermanent/Candy’) is reminiscent of R.E.M.’s Monster, another self-consciously iconoclastic record that 13”… shares some jewel-like DNA with… Celebration, forgiveness, wonder – are Xiu Xiu (and Stewart more specifically) experiencing growth, an arrival at a place of learned perspective? 13”… may be accessible, but thankfully it isn’t as simple as that. Especially when listening to the nine track album on a loop, it clearly rejects any sense of conclusion; its narrative is as unfinished as ‘Common Loon’’s queerness…Flawless industrial pop music… It’s funny, terrifying, extreme, horny, embarrassing, relatable – everything that Xiu Xiu have ever been at once. And you’re either left there, or you start all over again with reserved, romantic wonder. 13”... is a superlative pop record, but still an endless cycle of extremes. A shining, distorted, expertly constructed, open-ended record, that might be Xiu Xiu’s best.” - The Quietus (Album Of The Week)
“Their most accessible and fun project to date… In a discography ping-ponging between styles like a teenager discovering Tumblr, the noise-collage rockers have often brushed the underside of accessible, incurring a rush of fanbase excitement each time. It’s only now that the most pretense has been dropped, and Xiu Xiu is as close to Jack White as a Redditor could conceive.” - The Skinny
“‘Common Loon’ has a bit of a triumphant feel to it, marked by arpeggiated electric guitars, a steady chugging beat, and Jamie Stewart’s ominous vocals…The eerie band is back with the haunting album opener ‘Arp Omni’…and the ebullient banger ‘Veneficium.’” - Stereogum
Over the course of the last two decades, Xiu Xiu’s prolific and influential output of acclaimed albums and collaborations has been consistently dazzling. They’ve released 17 full-length LPs that have been praised in outlets such as The New Yorker, The Wire, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, NME and many others. They have toured the globe relentlessly, performing in places as far off the beaten path as Kazakhstan and Lebanon and places institutionally vital as the Guggenheim and Centre Pompidou.
Today, Friday, September 27, 2024 marks the release of new full-length 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips, now available via Polyvinyl. On 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips, Angela Seo, David Kendrick, and Jamie Stewart deliver some of the band’s most compelling and mesmerizing music to date. Mixed by John Congleton (Chelsea Wolfe, Swans, Lana Del Rey) this album is unlike anything the band has ever recorded previously and was motivated by the destruction of previous aesthetic notions, as well as the band's recent move from Los Angeles to Berlin.
13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips was announced in June with the enthralling lead single “Common Loon” which features squealing, anthemic, arpeggiated guitars countered by Jamie Stewart’s trademark haunting, confessional vocals, a song which Stewart calls: “A boogie embrace for queer perverts across the multiverse.” The release of “Common Loon” came with an NSFW video which was shot, directed, edited, and starring performance artist Alicia McDaid (aka Mcdazzler). According to Jamie Stewart: “The song ‘Common Loon,’ for us, is about reveling in perversity, cuckooness, queerness and/or the unquenchable personal requirement to wild out. As MASSIVE fans of Alicia McDazzler's work, we could think of no one else more qualified to embody those ways of being and no one else who would crank them up further than we would have ever imagined. She is an inspiration and icon to all LOONS!" Upon its release, “Common Loon” caught the attention of Brooklyn Vegan, Consequence, Dublab, Exclaim!, Grimy Goods, The Needle Drop, Pitchfork, Stereogum, and Under The Radar among others.
WATCH (NSFW) videos for “Common Loon”:
YouTube (censored) version | Vimeo (uncensored) version
August saw the release of haunting album opener “Arp Omni” which the bands says is “A little sweetie ballad about falling for a person who takes risks in life,” named one of The FADER’s Songs You Need In Your Life upon its release, and “Veneficium” an “ebullient banger” (Stereogum) which the band says is about “Being lost; literally lost, emotionally lost, lost in a smashed psychological dimension beyond your control, being overwhelmed by the weight of one’s insignificance in the face of time, space and death, and pointlessly railing against what does not notice let alone care about you.” The release of the two songs came accompanied by visuals; a beautiful visualizer for “Arp Omni” directed by Lin You, and a thrilling, visually stunning allegorical video for “Veneficium” directed by Luke Orlando, bookended by cameos from Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart and Angela Seo as “Toast Masters.”
According to Jamie Stewart: "A Veneficium is an instance of being poisoned or the preparation of magic potions or the substances that make up a poison. The point of any involvement with said substances or pursuits is at best meddling with risky and significant transformation and at worst taunting the nefarious, even up to the point of death. Either way, what lies in wait on the path to these in between and far away places from our present world is dangerous and unsettling and unknown. But perhaps also and why not, it could be being turned into a psychedelic BDSM train or the inspiration to benevolent and anonymous used toast and toaster delivery."
LISTEN to “Arp Omni” | WATCH “Veneficium” Video
Jamie Stewart spoke with The Quietus for an illuminating piece: Switchblade Romance: Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu Interviewed.
Xiu Xiu just embarked on extensive World Tour Dates surrounding the album’s release, with some newly confirmed dates in Europe planned for early 2025 (SEE ALL DATES BELOW).
Xiu Xiu - WORLD TOUR DATES
# w/ EVICSHEN
% Special commission by Seattle Theater Group – dance by Zoe Juniper with live music by Xiu Xiu
09/27 - Phoenix, AZ @ Rebel Lounge
09/28 - Tucson, AZ @ 191 Toole
09/30 - Austin, TX @ The Parish
10/02 - Denton, TX @ Rubber Gloves
10/03 - New Orleans, LA @ Siberia
10/05 - Orlando, FL @ Conduit
10/06 - Miami, FL @ Gramps
10/07 - Tampa, FL @ Crowbar
10/08 - Savannah, GA @ Lodge Of Sorrows
10/09 - Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
10/10 - Durham, NC @ Duke Coffee House
10/11 - Washington, DC @ Black Cat
10/13 - Baltimore, MD @ Metro
10/14 - Philadelphia, PA @ PhilaMoca
10/15 - New York, NY @ LPR
10/16 - Providence, RI @ AS220 Live Arts
10/17 - Portland, ME @ Space Gallery
10/18 - Montreal, QC @ Theatre Fairmont
10/19 - Toronto, ON @ Velvet Underground
10/20 - Columbus, OH @ Ace of Cups
10/21 - Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village
10/22 - Milwaukee, WI @ Cactus Club
10/23 - Des Moines, IA @ xBk
10/24 - Lawrence, KS @ The Bottleneck
10/26 - Fort Collins, CO @ The Coast
10/27 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge
10/29 - San Francisco, CA @ Gray Area Foundation for the Arts
10/30 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Lodge Room
11/08 - Groeningen, Netherlands @ Vera
11/09 - Den Bosch, Netherlands @ FAQ Festival
11/10 - Rotterdam, Netherlands @ De Doelen
11/11 - Brussels, Belgium @ La Botanique
11/13 - Bristol, UK @ Strange Brew
11/14 - Brighton, UK @ Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts
11/15 - Stockport, UK @ Saint Mary’s Parish Church
11/16 - Glasgow, UK @ Room 2 Cottiers
11/17 - Oxford, UK @ The Bullingdon
11/19 - London, UK @ Heaven #
11/20 - Cardiff, UK @ Clwb Ifor Bach #
11/22 - Brest, France @ Festival Invisible #
11/23 - Paris, France @ Hasard Ludique #
11/25 - Grenoble, France @ Le Ciel #
11/27 - Nurnberg, Germany @ Soft Spot / Kantine #
11/28 - Prague, Czech Republic @ Meet Factory #
11/29 - Berlin, Germany @ Lido #
11/30 - Poznań, Poland @ Próżność #
01/30 - Aarhus, Denmark @ VoxHall
02/01 - Stavanger, Norway @ Folken
02/02 - Bergen, Norway @ Landmark venue at Bergen Kunsthall
02/04 - Oslo, Norway @ Goldie
02/05 - Stockhkolm, Sweden @ Slaktkyrkan
02/06 - Gothenbourg, Sweden @ Folkteatern
02/07 - Copenhagen, Denmark @ Stengade
02/09 - Cologne, Germany @ Gebaude 9
02/10 - Trier, Germany @ Mergener Hof
02/11 - Bulle, Switzerland @ Ebullition
02/12 - Milano, Italy @ Santeria
02/13 - Roma, Italy @ Monk
02/14 - Bologna, Italy @ Baumhaus
02/15 - Pordenone, Italy @ Astro Club
02/16 - Zagreb, Croatia @ Mochvara
02/17 - Budapest, Hungary @ Dürer Kert
02/19 - Brno, Czech Republic @ Fleda
02/22 - Dresden, Denmark @ Beatpol
05/17 - Seattle WA @ Moore Theatre %
05/18 - Seattle, WA @ Moore Theatre %
No comments:
Post a Comment