Girl With A Basket Of Fruit : XIu Xiu: Review
Xiu Xiu
is a lot, and I mean that. The band blends genres from every reach of experimental music to make some extremely indulgent bastardizations of rock, electronica, goth and pop music. Despite collaborating with indie acts like Grouper and Michael Gira of Swans a surprising amount of indie fans never caught on to Xiu Xiu's presence until their 2010 album Dear God, I Hate Myself a foray into video game based music using the Nintendo DS music maker app in their recording process. Getting a shoutout from The War On Drugs for their 2014 album Angel Guts: Red Classroom was the biggest stop on their way to 2016's Xiu Xiu Plays The Music Of Twin Peaks. A universally acclaimed covers album of the Twin Peaks soundtrack that set them up for a fantastic follow up in Forget and drew attention to frontman Jamie Stewart's solo instrumental project last year.
Review By Lav:
I, like most people first heard of Xiu Xiu in 2010 and even then it was pretty clear to me that this was a band dabbling in stuff that nobody else was brave enough to touch with a 10 foot pole. Based on a strong recommendation I rekindled my association with the group in 2016 for their Twin Peaks covers album. They did such a fantastic job capturing the energy that Twin Peaks brings with it that the album became one of the only covers projects to ever land on my end of the year list and since then I've had my ears to the ground for any murmurings of Xiu Xiu material. Their 2017 follow-up Forget was indulgent but very solid and I think is to say my favorite release from the band to date, it also includes the phenomenal single Wondering. Then last year front man Jamie Stewart releases a solo album of instrumentals entitled An Aggressive, Chain Smoking Alcoholic. The project was a very interesting one but nothing that I found as interesting as the bands last two releases and provided a brief but cool tide towards the release of Girl With A Basket Of Fruit. I didn't pretend to know what the band may be going for all you need to know is that having expectations for Xiu Xiu is the best way to have them shattered.
Shattered is exactly what the title track does right away as soon as you turn this album on. Girl With A Basket Of Fruit is to this album what Wondering was for their last project, a serious masterpiece to guide you into the world of Xiu Xiu, The song is an insane and nonstop flurry of distant and distorted shouted vocals, rattling hypnotic drums and insane lyrics. The "Pointlessly trying to fuck a blue sky" lyric is the one that has stood out as my favorite but the track is full of bold and outlandish lyricism that makes you wonder who was really willing to release this, but it works so well. Some other fantastic songs in the same vein are both of the promotional singles that led up to this album, Pumpkin Attack On Mommy And Daddy features some brilliant sampling and a fantastic build as it takes a far darker look onto a Halloween aesthetic than its contemporary tunes. Scisssssssors is like a musical chase sequence set to a neo-goth hellscape with bouncy percussion that builds and loops over itself throughout the song there is plenty to love in any of these songs.
Although not everything is so perfect. Even though it can be hard to pin down at times, most of these tracks have a tight and interesting structure to them but when it falls apart its hard to stick with the song to its completion. Mary Turner Mary Turner is one of the crazier songs in concept but the huge sparse sonic landscape it inhabits isn't consistently interesting enough for me to completely dive into it and the song kind of falls apart from the inside out in its second half. Amargi ve Moo has this same problem but even worse as from the initial onset moments of the track there is simply nothing holding its absurdist elements together and the track sounds more like a sample pack than a true assembled song. Thankfully this time around there is a fix as the next track Ice Cream Truck goes for a similar approach and nails it with a much more concrete structure and a shorter run time.
That leaves us with a handful of stragglers, Comes Out As A Joke sounds like a track from the great Daughters album last year, its a brooding and pressure building post-punk inspired track that never lets you off the hook with heavy instrumentation. Its another highlight on a pretty stacked first quarter of the album. Then the most overtly personal song on the album The Wrong Thing reads as a very interesting and tortured poem put into song form that is good for the most part. Towards the middle there is a rough breakdown that kind of kills the songs flow but when the instrumentation picks back up it hits its stride again. And then on the closer Normal Love we have what sounds like a Perfume Genius ballad that is set in a Lovecraft universe with an incredible piano backing that sells it so well. When frontman Jamie Stewart hits his most strenuous notes he conveys the emotional potency of completely crumbling down in the most dramatic fashion and it is one of many unforgettable moments across this project.
Xiu Xiu have once again his us with a series of haunting tracks that cover the complete spectrum of dark and horror genres but do it with drama and performances that completely consume. The variety of successes on this project is one of its most impressive feats and the lack of comparisons you can make for any of these songs is the true measure of how far ahead of the curve the band is operating. Its a tad short for a project like this and does contain a dud or two but for the most part they are using sharp songwriting and mind blowing experimentation to carry brilliant songs that refuse to fit into any labels. 8/10
Shattered is exactly what the title track does right away as soon as you turn this album on. Girl With A Basket Of Fruit is to this album what Wondering was for their last project, a serious masterpiece to guide you into the world of Xiu Xiu, The song is an insane and nonstop flurry of distant and distorted shouted vocals, rattling hypnotic drums and insane lyrics. The "Pointlessly trying to fuck a blue sky" lyric is the one that has stood out as my favorite but the track is full of bold and outlandish lyricism that makes you wonder who was really willing to release this, but it works so well. Some other fantastic songs in the same vein are both of the promotional singles that led up to this album, Pumpkin Attack On Mommy And Daddy features some brilliant sampling and a fantastic build as it takes a far darker look onto a Halloween aesthetic than its contemporary tunes. Scisssssssors is like a musical chase sequence set to a neo-goth hellscape with bouncy percussion that builds and loops over itself throughout the song there is plenty to love in any of these songs.
Although not everything is so perfect. Even though it can be hard to pin down at times, most of these tracks have a tight and interesting structure to them but when it falls apart its hard to stick with the song to its completion. Mary Turner Mary Turner is one of the crazier songs in concept but the huge sparse sonic landscape it inhabits isn't consistently interesting enough for me to completely dive into it and the song kind of falls apart from the inside out in its second half. Amargi ve Moo has this same problem but even worse as from the initial onset moments of the track there is simply nothing holding its absurdist elements together and the track sounds more like a sample pack than a true assembled song. Thankfully this time around there is a fix as the next track Ice Cream Truck goes for a similar approach and nails it with a much more concrete structure and a shorter run time.
That leaves us with a handful of stragglers, Comes Out As A Joke sounds like a track from the great Daughters album last year, its a brooding and pressure building post-punk inspired track that never lets you off the hook with heavy instrumentation. Its another highlight on a pretty stacked first quarter of the album. Then the most overtly personal song on the album The Wrong Thing reads as a very interesting and tortured poem put into song form that is good for the most part. Towards the middle there is a rough breakdown that kind of kills the songs flow but when the instrumentation picks back up it hits its stride again. And then on the closer Normal Love we have what sounds like a Perfume Genius ballad that is set in a Lovecraft universe with an incredible piano backing that sells it so well. When frontman Jamie Stewart hits his most strenuous notes he conveys the emotional potency of completely crumbling down in the most dramatic fashion and it is one of many unforgettable moments across this project.
Xiu Xiu have once again his us with a series of haunting tracks that cover the complete spectrum of dark and horror genres but do it with drama and performances that completely consume. The variety of successes on this project is one of its most impressive feats and the lack of comparisons you can make for any of these songs is the true measure of how far ahead of the curve the band is operating. Its a tad short for a project like this and does contain a dud or two but for the most part they are using sharp songwriting and mind blowing experimentation to carry brilliant songs that refuse to fit into any labels. 8/10
