By Jase Walker

Artwork for Xiu Mutha Fuckin' Xiu Vol 1 by Xiu XiuOne of the biggest privileges about being surrounded by so much music and so many people listening to all sorts of stuff from all corners of the world is the exposure you get to the weird and wonderful approaches to it. This most recently has led to my discovery of Xiu Xiu whose name I’ve seen floating around for a while but only recently have they popped into my listening following my rabbit hole of new era shoegaze and post-punk.

So why not dive into their newest effort and see what the next page in the quite extended history of their musical career has in store for the world?

So here it is, this Friday is set for the launch date and the name implies that this is set to be the first entry in a series and clocks in at 12 tracks within radio friendly length, not my usual sort of thing as I tend to lean towards proggy song lengths of six minutes plus but I never sniff at music that is just that bit weird and Xiu Xiu’s new album has this in spades.

If you think covers have to be super familiar and identical to their originals but with the vocal cadence maybe being a bit different? Think again! Opening with ‘Psycho Killer’ by Talking Heads, the noise levels have been cranked up to dizzying levels, reverb drenched and feeling closer to shoegaze meets noise rock.

Xiu Xiu care little for convention so they’re going to put their bizarre take onto each cover one way or another. Admittedly I can’t profess to know every single one of these songs so I do have to do some checking as I’m going but I’d be letting myself down if I didn’t know Nina Simone’s ‘I Put A Spell On You’ though!

What a bizarre take on it that takes it’s original soul/RnB feel and dials it up to an extreme level through discordant saxophone and guitars that sound like they’ve been put through an insane amount of gain and reverb to the point where they almost just found like crashing cymbals more than anything else.

The more I get through this album, the more that it feels like this is much more than just a collection of covers that they thought ‘I bet we can do something with this’. This is a collection of songs that have no doubt shaped Xiu Xiu’s musical journey before the band was even a concept in their minds as well as songs and artists that continue to do so. Each song is put through the Xiu Xiu filter and its eccentricities and feel exaggerated and embellished.

Soft Cell’s ‘Sex Dwarf’ gets its own treatment that brings it out of its new romance and synthy origins and ends up being reimagined into a dirty industrial banger with techno cliffnotes. Over 40 years on from its original release that no doubt say plenty of play in dirty underground clubs across Europe, this feels like it’d fit in with the most current era and nobody would even blink.

Albums like this with so much musical intent and craftsmanship behind them are a rare glimpse into the psyche of the musicians that create them, a candid listen to the music that inspires them in their own work and how they interpret it in their minds alike.

The bottom line is, you don’t need to know who the original artist is for any of these songs, have a listen, experience some weird stuff that’ll expand your palette a bunch along the way and if you do decide to explore a bit then you’ve got a selection of fantastic artists to discover via this too.

Xiu Xiu are a bloody interesting marvel and once you’re past the jarring noise elements because it can be a bit of an acquired taste to some, have a dig through their back catalogue too. This is an artist with a massively varied style, seldom settling on one particular way to deliver their artistic vision and with this album showcasing songs that they clearly feel strongly about you can ease your way in with some level of familiarity and then drop into the rabbit hole and see where it goes.