Xiu Xiu - 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips (album review)

 Xiu Xiu - 13” Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips (2024)

My copy: 2024 mint green pressing by Polyvinyl

My relationship with Xiu Xiu across these 20-something years of music consumption has been fairly…complicated. I was first introduced with the somewhat infamous A Promise which clicked near instantly with me - particularly the emotionally recontextualized version of Tracy Chapman’s hit “Fast Car.” “What a shockingly raw and frightful band” I rightly thought, and yet 13” is the first record of theirs I’ve ever purchased. 

 In all my fawning over A Promise, something about owning a record with a nude Taiwanese prostitute on the cover didn’t exactly sit well with me back then. Xiu Xiu seem to have always been insistent on pushing boundaries, flirting with the uncomfortable to whatever effect; though I tend to fall off the bandwagon when their interest seems to serve shock value and nothing else.

 The band has also brushed more with indie pop since their early years, most notably on 2004’s Fabulous Muscles and later 2017’s Forget. While their input remained consistently unpredictable, I drew the line at the unnecessary and self-indulgent Girl With Basket Of Fruit, an album that drew pseudo-intellectuals en masse to lap at the knees of serial crooner/bandleader Jaime Stewart. One could argue the band’s continuous desire to break further into the avant world coupled with deep social and political themes is what has kept them alive for over 20 years now (sometimes it’s supposed to sound like shit). But reflecting on their more pretentious chaff is not today’s objective. I was alerted that this new 2024 release was “more like a sequel to Forget,” and so I donned the headphones once again. 

From the introductory “Arp Omni” it is apparent that emotional and sonic sincerity are back in style with Xiu Xiu, and it is to gripping effect. By subduing some of the more bubbly, hip-hop influenced tricks of Forget, a new aesthetic is forged on the outskirts of dungeon synth, post-punk and ambient music. Stewart’s ghoulish moan is infused with the mania of a long abandoned pop-star turned to unpredictable derangement: one moment the album forms a cradle of atmospheric synth lamenting (“Arp Omni,” “Pale Flower”) and the next, grimy bass grooves erupt to shift the plates under what could easily be rearranged into danceable pop/rock hits (“Veneficium,” “Sleep Blvd.”). 

Truly the sound palette (or rather the way it is twisted, manipulated) is their most engaging (and likely accessible) in years. Experimentation is only admirable when it is not obviously a ploy, and here Xiu Xiu seems to cast off some of their greater pretensions to revive an obviously natural lust for demented pop hooks. Perhaps the most impressive expression is the finale “Piña, Coconut & Cherry” which chronicles a mental breakdown that has been building since the album’s introduction. 

13” is a powerful record, though at times it is too tangled and layered for its own good: from twisting synth arps to icy organs all weaving, occasionally, into a mess of sound. The production is thick and awash with reverberating drones, sometimes suffocating the bass. Stewart however is at an all time high performance here, and elevates the album’s concepts into convincing immersive atmospheres. The arrangements straddle a crucial line between complicated and simplistic, with indispensable member Angela Seo likely contributing heavily to the array of instruments featured in this neon-lit spider-web of paranoia. 

Xiu Xiu is back (for now).