Xiu Xiu share dual singles ‘Arp Omni’ / ‘Veneficium’
L-R: Angela Seo + Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu by Eva Luise Hoppe (not pictured: David Kendrick)
"22 years into their career the perennial outsiders of 21st century queer American art rock have announced a potentially game-changing album in the shape of 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto With Bison Horn Grips." - The Quietus
“Noise pop experimentalists Xiu Xiu are back doing what they do best: writing a genuinely sticky, well-constructed tune and subsequently running it through a meat grinder. On “Common Loon,” surprisingly gentle melodies collide with buzzsaw tones and maximalist production for one of Xiu Xiu’s most approachable songs since 2017’s Forget. All the more reason to look forward to the September 27th release of their new LP, 13″ Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips.” - Best Songs of the Week - Consequence
“Xiu Xiu is back! I feel like the band hasn’t come out with something this overtly and directly catchy since the "Wondering" era… that Xiu Xiu spectrum tends to slide between stuff that is post-punky, lo-fi, kind of direct and has a bit of an indie appeal, and other records are far more avant-garde, harsh, experimental, abstract and noisy… this new single is pretty hooky by general Xiu Xiu standards and quite sweet on the ears… it’s fuzzy, melodic, groovy, a really enjoyable listen.” - Best Tracks Of The Week - The Needle Drop
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 Guardian, The Quietus 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 shares a dual single release for the songs ‘Arp Omni,’ a swelling, textural string-filled ballad, and the jolting, maximalist, industrial prog-pop banger ‘Veneficium.’ Both songs appear on the new album 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips, due for release September 27th 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, 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.
According to Xiu Xiu, ‘Arp Omni’ is “A little sweetie ballad about falling for a person who takes risks in life,” while ‘Veneficium’ is about “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 alone care about you.”
The release of the two songs is accompanied by visuals, including a beautiful visualiser for ‘Arp Omni directed by Lin You, and a thrilling, visually stunning allegorical video for ‘Veneficium’ directed by Luke Orlando, bookended by cameos from Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart and Angela Seo as ‘Toast Masters.’
Jamie Stewart shares: "A Veneficium is an instance of being poisoned or the preparation of magic potions or the substances that make up a poison. The point of any involvement with said substances or pursuits is at best meddling with risky and significant transformation and at worst taunting the nefarious, even up to the point of death. Either way, what lies in wait on the path to these in between and far away places from our present world is dangerous and unsettling and unknown. But perhaps also and why not, it could be being turned into a psychedelic BDSM train or the inspiration to benevolent and anonymous used toast and toaster delivery."
Director Luke Orlando shares: "On the conceptual level, I wanted to make something about the absurdity and complexity of how we connect with each other in the modern world. It started off as a critique of doomscrolling, but Xiu Xiu pushed and enabled me to make it more esoteric and interesting at every turn. Where we ended up is a much more positive spin on finding community by openly sharing your interests with the world. In the end it became a very ideal art project - I found myself working with some of my best friends to hand-paint toast, fabricate a bespoke costume, and create a unique logic inspired by the occult for the world in this video. Videos like this don’t happen often because artists/directors are rarely given the freedom to create without inhibition, and for that I thank Xiu Xiu and everyone at Polyvinyl for letting me go off."
Listen to ‘Arp Omni’ | Watch ‘Veneficium’
Today’s dual single release follows June’s enthralling lead single ‘Common Loon’ which features squealing, anthemic, arpeggiated guitars countered by Jamie Stewart’s trademark haunting, confessional vocals, a song which Stewart calls: “A boogie embrace for queer perverts across the multiverse.” The release of “Common Loon” came with an NSFW video which was shot, directed, edited, and starring performance artist Alicia McDaid (aka Mcdazzler). According to Jamie Stewart: “The song ‘Common Loon,’ for us, is about revelling 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!" Upon its release, ‘Common Loon’ caught the attention of The Quietus, The Line Of Best Fit, Consequence, Pitchfork, The Needle Drop, Stereogum and Under The Radar among others.
NSFW videos for ‘Common Loon’: YouTube (censored) version | Vimeo (uncensored) version
Jamie Stewart also recently spoke with The Quietus for an illuminating piece: Switchblade Romance: Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu Interviewed.
Xiu Xiu plans to embark on an extensive World Tour surrounding the album’s release, all dates below.
Xiu Xiu - WORLD TOUR DATES
# w/ EVICSHEN
% Special commission by Seattle Theater Group – dance by Zoe Juniper with live music by Xiu Xiu
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
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
15/11 - Stockport, UK @ Saint Mary’s Parish Church
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 #
17/05 - Seattle WA @ Moore Theatre %
18/05 - Seattle, WA @ Moore Theatre %
“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
13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips out 27th September on Polyvinyl
Pre-Order
Tracklisting:
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
