Kirk Gauthier
Exceptionally more pop-forward than 2023’s Ignore Grief, this is just the right mix of creepy, weird, and fun and couldn’t have been released at a better time of year. Hard to say exactly how long Fall will last in 2024 (my favorite season seems to get shorter and shorter every year), but this album will most certainly stay in heavy rotation. I’m not sure exactly how to describe the vibes, but I’m here for them 100%. Also, pretty sure no album title has ever gone as hard as this one.
Favorite track: Common Loon.
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33 oz. Zelar Iridescent Glass Jar
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Jacket and inner sleeve printed on holographic rainbow stock.
Includes unlimited streaming of 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 16-bit/44.1kHz.
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Shorts - Xiu Xiu Gothic Booty
Other Apparel
BRAND: Augusta Sportswear Ladies Junior Fit Jersey Shorts
GARMENT COLOR: Black
INK COLOR: White
Heavyweight 50% polyester/50% cotton jersey knit with an elastic waistband, V-notch at sides, and a 3-inch inseam.
Please Note: Women's sizes labeled "Junior Fit" are intended for a snug fit; for a looser fit, size up.
With freckles as sparkling as yours
Who could dare to un-sparkle your dots
A face as unreasonably adorable as yours
Who could dare to thoughtlessly smudge your cheek
With black hair as infinite as yours
What could dare to bar your passage through the void
I have done almost nothing right
My entire adult life
But having dared to touch the fire with you
breaks the chains
Of my being nothing (too)
Indiscretions as starling as yours
Who could dare to define them as wrong or right
With invention as amusing as yours
Who could dare to remain uninvolved
With secrecy as bewildering as yours
What could insist on penetrating
what will you do if and when
I am someone else
They are a freak cool
Impermanent candy
Common Loon inopportune
But don’t you worry about it now
Red Balloon over used
(So) don’t you worry about it now
A beautiful b.o.i.
Vaseline to be polite
It's time to creep out
Get Low Low dandy
Oh I looked upon
Dreams mocked to death
Slats and husks and frozen frame
Sinking into the dust
Oh I was repulsed
And I acted thus
Mocked by liminal space
Pressed down into the dust
Given all this
why can I go back
how can I stay still
when caught in these acts
The area, the mass and shape
air above the massive space
Oh what’s to be come of this now
Unto floating eyes
Flash in deep release
Calendulas loomed
Before they were consumed
All turns for the worse
Unreal but not untrue
Seized by the mass and shape
is it all it is
“I did not join a rock and roll band to play rock and roll!”
– Blixa Bargeld, on quitting The Bad Seeds
“My name is Blixa Bargeld. And I’m here for my COMPUTER!”
– Also Blixa Bargeld, when picking up said computer from a computer store in Berlin where Xiu Xiu now resides
There’s a dance, and on occasion a place to go dancing, where we while away the inevitable in the distinct hopes that we can better embrace what’s left of clocks that only run one way. You see, time is the issue and the issue is all about doing a dance that measures out life, and chance, and smooths the groove into something that can comfortably be swallowed.
Like 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips?
Precisely like 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips. Which, on the face of it is the newest record from Xiu Xiu, but only on the face of it. Underneath that face, the sinews and struggles of a need that seeks to name itself over every record, and every song on every record, ever written by Xiu Xiu of course, but also anyone who ever sought to make a record that’s worth a good goddamned. And this record is precisely that.
That is: a good goddamned. Nine songs of it, in fact. Nine songs to seal the deal for those who will still listen to all nine songs, in order, because an album is a message that can’t be read piecemeal. Mixed by John Congleton with a band-directed dictum that he should feel free to both “go crazy” and if there was ever any doubt as to what that meant please, by all means “choose iconoclasm.”
Which, if your ears are not liars, he has very specifically done. Even if it was not that heavy of a lift to do so since Xiu Xiu has made doing so their raison d’etre for the better part of forever. Formally formalized here under Xiu Xiu’s sense that “the destruction of an original aesthetic notion as a motivation was new for us.”
Were it also a marching order for anyone committing to actualizing a musical experience of some significance, it seems we’d all be a lot better off. Or at least feeling a lot better off. Which in the end is the only measurement that matters in the face of lives of weighty import. Or even lightweight frivolity. It’s there and everywhere in-between.
And while it sounds like in a volitional sense something easy to do, doing so song after song on record after record doesn’t always clarify or make things easy. Something driven home on their song “Veneficium,” a word with Latin roots connected to poisoning potions.
“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 along care about you”
This record though, it must be said, sounds (and feels) like it does care about you. A sense that might mask the randomness of our place in space or more completely, sets it off as the true face of all of our public endeavors.
Beyond that? Songs like “Common Loon,” “Arp Omni,” and “T.D.F.T.W.” tip the scales toward a dangerous kind of listening experience. One that both takes a lot, but gives more, in almost equal measure.
Something set off by Xiu Xiu when they say, as they do, that if they want us to feel anything for this record, it would be “unafraid.”
Damned straight. We’ve had our fill of that shit lately, and if Xiu Xiu’s move to Berlin is any indication – “we wanted to stay ahead of disaster this time” – it is no less important of a thing than anything else we measure life and death with.
So, 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips?
Yes, 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips. While regret is for children and old people, rest assured that if you’re not one, you’ll be the other. And out of the long laundry list of things on your regret list, you will most definitely not find 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips. It’s a mitzvah. For what we should be well pleased.
You are alive. And, oh yeah, long live Xiu Xiu.
–Eugene S. Robinson, East Palo Alto, California
credits
released September 27, 2024
Produced by Angela Seo
Mixed by John Congleton at Animal Rites, Los Angeles
Recorded by Jamie Stewart at Nurse, Los Angeles & Krankenschwester, Berlin
Mastered by Alan Douche at West West Side Music, Cornwall-On-Hudson
Design by Janelle Abad
David Kendrick - drum set, percussion
Angela Seo - synth, organ, sheet metal, vox, percussion, piano, autoharp
Jamie Stewart - guitar, bass, vox, synth, percussion, bajo quinto, drum machine
Soo Cho - violin
David Kim - violin
Min Kim - viola
John Lee - cello
Daniel Park - cello
supported by 111 fans who also own “13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips”
I don't usually listen to hardcore shit, but when I do it's pessimist anticapitalist shit fueled by prudish christian hypocrisy and a sardonic sense of humor. Let's go out to the refinery and soak up man's arrogance. plasticwrap
Portland shoegaze that plays, as the best representatives of the genre do, with huge, hollow atmosphere against intimate observations. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 23, 2016
Noisy, unsettling experimental pop in turns touching and political. From now until 3/5, 50% of proceeds go to Planned Parenthood/ACLU. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 8, 2017
Tenured punk Dan Sartain ditches the guitars in favor of midnight-blue synths and robotic rhythms on this album of minimalist synthpop. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 18, 2016
supported by 98 fans who also own “13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips”
•AOTY 2022•
This album is a masterclass on how to stir up chaos without getting lost in the madness. Every nook and cranny of this album is slathered with intricacy. There are many claustrophobic moments throughout this album, but clarity is not lost in the process. From front to back, this album does not let up in the slightest. jinxtriplejinx