Frederick Foxtrott

Xiu Xiu
Women as Lovers
January 29th 2008
Kill Rock Stars

I first heard Xiu Xiu at the 2005 Intonation Festival in Chicago. At the time there were only two band members emitting their unique wall of noise. It was a spectacle to see this thin little man beat a cymbal while sing-sobbing into the microphone. I fell in love with the act then and there. Caralee pushed buttons and keys, yanked twirly-bobs, losing herself in the summer heat. I remember when Jamie pulled out his autoharp and began to play what I later knew as Bog People. It was magnificent and discordant. Xiu Xiu abandoned standardization and came to represent to me the pinnacle of experimental liminal anti-pop.

The duo tackles the dark recesses of the mind, graphically describing disease, suffering, and anxiety with soft and poetic grace. Explicit sexual acts are injected into a song by a tender and emotive voice. In 2006 Xiu Xiu released The Air Force, easily one of if not the best record of the year. They seemed to have found the perfect balance, mashing beauty and ugliness, the excruciatingly ordinary and the sublime. Some may find Jamie’s lyrics melodramatic and his quivering voice ridiculous, but Xiu Xiu’s latest recording does not shy away from their stylistic hyper-expression. They seem to combat such criticisms with a doubled dose of effeminate grandeur.

Women as Lovers, due out at the end of January, transports the listener via blips and bleeps into Jaime Stewart’s personal space. The listener is often left feeling as if an acquaintance has told them something entirely too personal and while they are uncomfortable, they find Stewart’s openness agreeable and attractive. He’ll scream and he’ll croon and he’ll turn harmonic tones into caustic particles that pull apart from one another and then gravitate toward one another again. The songs simultaneously diffuse and then reconstitute themselves, proving the geist of reason can be reassembled from even the most deconstructed of expressions.

Although electronic effects color every song, there is a noticeably increased amount of guitar work throughout Women as Lovers. The song Master of the Bump recalls the quiet despair found on 2005’s La Forêt, yet it emphasizes the warmth of a reverberated amplifier. It reminds me of an old 50s era romantic radio tune playing during the loneliest moment of my life. Also, there is a noticeable presence of a fuller drum section brought by Ches Smith, not to mention the bursts of brass instrumentation that speckles tracks like No Friend Oh. Their cover of Under Pressure is not as good as it should have been, but something tells me that the track was recorded offhand and playfully. On the last track Gayle Lynn, all the newly fashioned elements of Xiu Xiu are assembled, most aptly displaying their collective creativity. The bass pulses as beats are acoustically and digitally mapped onto the track, while a flutter of horn fills the space between the layers of ambient noise.

Women as Lovers is a pretty good listen and Xiu Xiu has done well to add new creative minds to the mix. The exploration of melodic and anti-melodic chemistry is what makes Xiu Xiu great. James Stewart’s voice is amazing as ever and Caralee’s precious vocal assists beautify the monstrous themes of Xiu Xiu’s imagination. Women as Lovers never equals the shear genius of The Air Force. It lacks incredible hooks and its energy is muted. While the inclusion of new sounds is a great strength, Women as Lovers leaves the listener convinced that Xiu Xiu has not reached the full potential of their new structure. I certainly hope you people pick up the new Xiu Xiu as it is one of the first quality releases of 2008.

6/9

http://www.xiuxiu.org
http://www.myspace.com/xiuxiuforlife

Other Albums
Knife Play- 2002
A Promise- 2003
Fag Patrol- 2003
Fabulous Muscles- 2004
Life and Live- 2005
La Forêt- 2005
The Air Force- 2006