Over the course of the last two decades, Xiu Xiu’s prolific and influential output of acclaimed albums and collaborations has been consistently dazzling. They’ve released 17 full-length LPs that have been praised in outlets such as The New Yorker, The Wire, Rolling Stone, The Quietus, The Guardian, NME and many others.
They have toured the globe relentlessly, performing in places as far off the beaten path as Kazakhstan and Lebanon and places institutionally vital as the Guggenheim and Centre Pompidou.
Today Xiu Xiu announces the new studio album “13” Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips”, due for release on September 27th, 2024, via Polyvinyl.
On “13” Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips”, Angela Seo, David Kendrick and Jamie Stewart deliver some of the band’s most compelling and mesmerising music to date. Mixed by John Congleton (Chelsea Wolfe, Swans, Lana Del Rey) this album is unlike anything the band has ever recorded previously and was motivated by the destruction of previous aesthetic notions, as well as the band’s recent move from Los Angeles to Berlin.
The album’s announcement is accompanied by the confirmation of extensive World Tour Dates (see all dates below) including a return to the UK in November, along with the enthralling lead single “Common Loon” which features squealing anthemic guitars countered by Jamie Stewart’s trademark haunting, confessional vocals.
Stewart calls the song: “‘A boogie embrace for queer perverts across the multiverse’. The release of ‘Common Loon’ comes with an NSFW video which was shot, directed, edited, and stars performance artist Alicia McDaid as “Mcdazzler, Britney Spears, The Angelologist, Smurfette, Garfield, Pepe, Anna Nicole Smith Joker, Led Zeppelin groupie, Galactica Darkstar, Jason Voorhees, Frida Kardashian, Viagra, Goth Monica Geller, Chemtrails, Ghöstmilf, She Hulk, Carmela Soprano, Cathy, Bret Michaels Andy Warhol and Odie”.
Of the video, Jamie Stewart shares: “The song ‘Common Loon’, for us, is about reveling in perversity, cuckooness, queerness and/or the unquenchable personal requirement to wild out. As MASSIVE fans of Alicia McDazzler’s work, we could think of no one else more qualified to embody those ways of being and no one else who would crank them up further than we would have ever imagined. She is an inspiration and icon to all LOONS”!
Alicia McDaid shares: “I used footage of myself as @mcdazzler and lots of different characters from the past 10 years to compose what I hope feels like an end of pop culture freak life flashing before your third eye journey to the corndog underworld which emerges into the collective funnel cake in the sky that exists within everything and nothing where all beings are truly free to headbang as Garfield and Odie simultaneously”.
Watch The NSFW (nudity, sexual acts, corn dogs, etc) video for “Common Loon” shot, directed, edited, and starring performance artist Alicia McDaid
Pre-order & pre-save “13” Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips” here.
Tracklist:
1.Arp Omni
2.Maestro One Chord
3.Common Loon
4.Pale Flower
5.Veneficium
6.Sleep Blvd.
7.T.D.F.T.W.
8.Bobby Bland
9.Piña, Coconut & Cherry
“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 formalised 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 actualising 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 endeavours.
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”s. It’s a mitzvah. For what we should be well pleased.
You are alive. And, oh yeah, long live Xiu Xiu.
World Tour Dates 2024:
20/09 – Reno, NV @ The Holland Project
21/09 – Boise, ID @ Shrine Social Club
22/09 – Seattle, WA @ The Vera Project
23/09 – Portland, OR @ Holocene
24/09 – Arcata, CA @ The Miniplex
26/09 – San Diego, CA @ The Loft at UCSD
27/09 – Phoenix, AZ @ Rebel Lounge
28/09 – Tucson, AZ @ 191 Toole
30/09 – Austin, TX @ The Parish
02/10 – Denton, TX @ Rubber Gloves
03/10 – New Orleans, LA @ Siberia
05/10 – Orlando, FL @ Conduit
06/10 – Miami, FL @ Gramps
07/10 – Tampa, FL @ Crowbar
08/10 – Savannah, GA @ Lodge Of Sorrows
09/10 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
10/10 – Durham, NC @ TBA
11/10 – Washington, DC @ Black Cat
13/10 – Baltimore, MD @ Metro
14/10 – Philadelphia, PA @ PhilaMoca
15/10 – New York, NY @ LPR
16/10 – Providence, RI @ AS220 Live Arts
17/10 – Portland, ME @ Space Gallery
18/10 – Montreal, QC @ Theatre Fairmont
19/10 – Toronto, ON @ Velvet Underground
20/10 – Columbus, OH @ Ace of Cups
21/10 – Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village
22/10 – Milwaukee, WI @ Cactus Club
23/10 – Des Moines, IA @ xBk
24/10 – Lawrence, KS @ The Bottleneck
26/10 – Fort Collins, CO @ The Coast
27/10 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge
29/10 – San Francisco, CA @ Gray Area Foundation for the Arts
30/10 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Lodge Room
01/11 – Oberlin, OH @ The ‘Sco – Oberlin College
08/11 – Groeningen, Netherlands @ Vera
09/11 – Den Bosch, Netherlands @ FAQ Festival
10/11 – Rotterdam, Netherlands @ De Doelen
11/11 – Brussels, Belgium @ La Botanique
13/11 – Bristol, UK @ Strange Brew
14/11 – Brighton, UK @ Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (ACCA)
15/11 – Stockport, UK @ St Mary’s
16/11 – Glasgow, UK @ Room 2 Cottiers
17/11 – Oxford, UK @ The Bullingdon
19/11 – London, UK @ Heaven #
20/11 – Cardiff, UK @ Clwb Ifor Bach #
22/11 – Brest, France @ Festival Invisible #
23/11 – Paris, France @ Hasard Ludique #
25/11 – Grenoble, France @ Le Ciel #
27/11 – Nurnberg, Germany @ Soft Spot / Kantine #
28/11 – Prague, Czech Republic @ Meet Factory #
29/11 – Berlin, Germany @ Lido #
30/11 – Poznań, Poland @ Próżność #
05/17 – Seattle WA @ Moore Theatre %
05/18 – Seattle, WA @ Moore Theatre %
# (w/ Evicshen)
% (Special commission by Seattle Theater Group, dance by Zoe Juniper and live music by Xiu Xiu)
Weblinks:
www.xiuxiu.org
www.facebook.com/xiuxiuforlife
