Experimental boundary pushers Xiu Xiu have announced their upcoming new album, Ignore Grief, set for release on March 3 via Polyvinyl.
David Kendrick (Sparks, Dev0) joins Xiu Xiu’s existing members Jamie Stewart and Angela Seo on the album which is “a record of halves” according to a press release. The band say that “half of the songs are experimental industrial. Half of the songs are experimental modern classical”… The Vinyl Factory Limited
This is a record of halves. Angela Seo sings on half of the record. Jamie Stewart sings on half of the record. Half of the songs are experimental industrial. Half of the songs are experimental modern classical. Half of it is real. Half of it is imaginary.
The real songs attempt to turn the worst life has offered to five people the band is connected with into some kind of desperate shape that does something, anything, other than grind and brutalize their hearts and memory within these stunningly horrendous experiences… Polyvinyl Records
The imaginary songs are an expansion and abstract exploration of the early rock and roll “Teen Tragedy” genre as jumping off point to decontaminate the band’s own overwhelming emotions in knowing and living with what has happened to these five people.
What none of this record does and despite the oft repeated assertion, what Xiu Xiu has never done, is attempt to superficially shock the listener. Instead, Xiu Xiu has spent twenty years grappling with how to process, to be empathetic towards, to disobey and to reorganize horror; there is no other word for it other than horror.
The motivation for writing Ignore Grief to be about a child who was sold into prostitution by his mother, a junior high student who was kidnapped and murdered, incessantly choosing alcohol and cocaine over one’s family, becoming lost in the bleakest, darkest aspects of cultish spirituality and committing suicide as means to escape and protest a life of violent sex work is because the members of Xiu Xiu themselves are deeply shocked.
Old friend and new member David Kendrick (Sparks, Devo, Gleaming Spires) joins Angela Seo and Jamie Stewart through whatever this may be and whatever it may mean and why ever it may have occurred. The point of aesthetic examination is to see if there is any way to come out the other side or if there is even any reason. In either case there may not be but to simply turn away would be yet a further act of destruction.
“I had now lost all confidence in myself, doubted all men immeasurably, and abandoned all hopes for the things of this world, all joy, all sympathy, eternally. This was the truly decisive incident of my life. I had been split through the forehead between the eyebrows, a wound that was to throb with pain whenever I came into contact with a human being.”
-Osamu Dazai
1. The Real Chaos Cha Cha Cha
2. 666 Photos of Nothing
3. Esquerita, Little Richard
4. Maybae Baeby
5. Tarsier, Tarsier, Tarsier, Tarsier
6. Pahrump
7. Border Factory
8. Dracula Parrot, Moon Moth
9. Brothel Creeper
10. For M
Tour Dates:
Apr 4, 2023
Tue 8:00 pm, 191 Toole – Tucson, AZ
Apr 9, 2023
Sun 9:00 pm, Gasa Gasa – New Orleans, LA
Apr 19, 2023
Wed 8:00 pm, Le Poisson Rouge – NY – New York, NY
Apr 22, 2023
Sat 7:00 pm, Stage On Herr At Harrisburg Midtown Arts Center – Harrisburg, PA
Apr 29, 2023
Sat 8:00 pm, Bottleneck – Lawrence, KS
May 1, 2023
Mon 7:00 pm, The Urban Lounge – Salt Lake City, UT
May 4, 2023
Thu 8:00 pm, Holocene – Portland, OR
May 5, 2023
Fri 8:00 pm, The Chapel – San Francisco, CA
May 20 (PPD)
Time: TBAAJJ – Andrew Jackson Jihad, Xiu Xiu & Emperor X
Varsity Theater – MN – Minneapolis, MN