Following 2017's Forget, Xiu Xiu have hardly remained silent. In addition to remastering and re-releasing two of their early albums (Knife Play and A Promise), they also released a split single of ZZ-Top covers with the band (r), uploaded tons of ephemera to their bandcamp, and released a collaborative album with Larsen, Puff O'Gigio. Jamie Stewart also saw fit to release a solo record, An Aggressive Chain Smoking Alcoholic. All have been relatively low stakes endeavors, but for their proper follow up to my favorite album of 2017, Stewart and company decided to go much weirder and obtuse.
Girl With Basket of Fruit and Forget share similar elements, but in terms of accessibility, they are on opposite poles within Xiu Xiu's discography. While Forget is one of Xiu Xiu's more straight forward and poppy (which is still pretty far left of the dial), their newest offering seems much more abrasive and difficult. The title track kicks off the album with off kilter rhythms delivered by world percussion and manipulated synths, while free association lyrics are yelping disturbing, vaguely sexual imagery, all while cacophonous sound effects form a chaotic mood.
The unsettling atmosphere continues on 'It Comes Out as a Joke', with dark pulsating bass tones buried under swirling effects, heavily manipulated vocals and percussion that sounds like someone wailing on a chemical drum. I'm not even going to try to delve into Stewart's cryptic lyrics for the most part, since a lot of it is borderline nonsensical, though it really conveys more of a feeling than an actual plot or concrete idea. 'Amargi ve Moo' is one of the first of a few twisted ballads here, carried by some distorted strings (maybe a cello?), and accentuated by Stewart's exaggerated and freakish vibrato vocals, which alternate between whispers and frantic rambling.
The track 'Ice Cream Truck' is dominated by strange horn sounds, pounding machinery like percussion, discordant upright bass, and some chopped up vocal samples that remind me of the loops that adorned Swans' Filth. The band probably get their most experimental on the song 'Pumpkin Attack on Mommy and Daddy', which begins with some weird clucking, and then progresses into some cowbell, which gives way into oscillating loops, more aggressive percussion, and some vocals delivered by a woman that resemble half of a very strange phone conversation.The track features a very brief plucked string interlude, before diving right back into the suffocating maelstrom on sound.
'The Wrong Thing' acts as another more downpaced cool down, with cold washes of synths manipulated by sawtooth tremolo, slow pulses of bass, and some ringing bells. Spoken word opens the track, with a vaguely synthetic voice that recalls Radiohead's 'Fitter, Happier', before Jamie again enters with his wild vibrato laden voice. Then end of the track builds a crescendo of sour sounds which I can't quite place since they are quite filtered, but I feel like I hear maybe some koto and perhaps a bassoon or other woodwind in the mix. This tension eventually resolves as the track ends quietly.
This leads into my favorite and most unsettling track on this album, 'Mary Turner, Mary Turner'. This is probably the only song where the narrative is easy enough to follow, and recounts the horrific death of Mary Turner and her unborn child at the hands of a lynch mob. This is done through an almost power electronics filter, but maybe I only hear that because I've been listening to a lot of Whitehouse and Deathpile recently, but its more intense moments really remind me of something like 'Why You Never Became a Dancer'. It really gets you thinking about the political climate we're in, and that even though this attack happened decades ago, there are still people in this country ready to take up the mantle of Turner's killers.
The track 'Scisssssssors' is a return to the highly percussive, abrasive textures of the beginning of the album, complete with bubbling synths, world percussion, and clanging and whirring apparati forming an altogether claustrophobic and suffocating atmosphere, onto which Stewart lays his creepy vibrato and off putting screams. Near the end, it alternates between this intensity with pounding drums and some slower strings for added unpredictability. The closing track, 'Normal Love' is a calming and simultaneously uncomfortable end, with the instrumentation stripped back to some piano figures and some plucked strings. It's vibrato led vocals are backed by voices that almost remind me of a twisted version of Bon Iver, and even near the end when the singing intensifies into cries and yells, the instrumentation remains very serene.
If you bought the Early Bird vinyl, there was a flexi disc of the song 'Yellow Candle' included. This track is another slower piece characterized by some reverb laden tremolo guitar, delayed keyboards, some timpani, and incredibly frail singing giving way to repeated shouts.
This album is probably Xiu Xiu's most adventurous in a while, and it's definitely not going to be for everyone. I really enjoy the risks they took on this album, and I look forward to picking apart more layers of instrumentation and parsing out possible lyrical meanings with repeated listens. Though not as immediate as their previous record, I feel like this album may have a lot more replay value, as it's a lot more sonically dense than the relatively skeletal instrumentation on a lot of Forget's more pop leaning tracks.
What did you think of the album? I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, but if you didn't, that's cool too. At least you gave it a try. I'm off to start work on the next entry in the albums in my life series. Next time, the year 2000.
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