Vol 1 – Album Review

Xiu Xiu: Xiu Mutha Fuckin’ Xiu : Vol 1

(Polyvinyl Records)

All Formats

Out Now

Purveyors of velvet-covered noise and abstract impressionism release a brand new album of delectable and delightful covers to surprise and amaze. MK Bennett has a listen.

A band must make a decision when they release a cover version, more so when it’s an album, an artefact, a product sent out into the overpopulated marketplace. There may be artistic factors at play, a determination of genre, musical ability, nerve. Still, they have form, having previously released a whole record of Nina Simone covers, so they clearly have no problem taking on genius, untouchable or otherwise.

In recent times, we have hit upon the John Lewis Situation, wherein with little imagination and the changing of the musical guard (exchange guitars for piano, reduce the tempo as needed), more or less any noted pop classic can be turned into Christmas elevator music. XIU XIU hold no truck with this idea, thankfully, as Volume One is a kaleidoscopic and often surprising run through of the band’s influences and peers, a playful peek behind the curtain of their musical make-up that is partly fun, partly harrowing but never boring and always illuminating.

It is an interesting track listing, featuring the sacred and the profane, the expected and the unexpected, which is exactly what you would expect. Psycho Killer is at least familiar ground; this version is less so, sounding, as it does, like a mariachi knife fight, a soundtrack to the carnival at the end of the world. It sets out the album’s stall admirably, respectful and playful, at least to start with, you could easily imagine hearing it on some edgy Netflix show about teen murder.

Warm Leatherette is a memory of the original; if you’ve not heard the original for a while, a smudged xerox repainted in bright, vivid colours. It is as electronic as previously and nearly as swaggering as the Grace Jones version, a nuclear-powered backbeat of found sounds and digital collage. I Put A Spell On You is far closer to the mania of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins than the other versions, a drum machine-led screamer with a very metal guitar line buried but visible in the mix. They have started to wholeheartedly draw outside the lines now, and this can only be good for them, and us. Crazed but controlled, it prowls the fences with menace.

Hamburger Lady is, in its own way, almost faithful to the original, while simultaneously sounding like 60s John Cale gone to church. Deliberately strange, it is haunted in the best way. Easily read as a diatribe against forced living, the instrumentation is an appropriate metaphor for the horror it describes. In Dreams is extraordinarily brave for several reasons. One, the vocal itself. A song where Orbison starts at a virtual whisper and rises through volume, tone and ultimate technique, it is only a karaoke favourite if you’re miming, like Dean Stockwell in Blue Velvet. The original bears the pain of true grief; it’s all there, in the voice. Remarkably, Xiu Xiu manage to maintain a line of reverence to both the Orbison version and Blue Velvet, playing it nearly straight but reminding us that just beneath the surface of love lies death, sickly sweet and waiting, patiently. Singer Jamie Stewart wisely decides to rein in the octaves but still hits the emotion of it square on.

Sex Dwarf is a romp through sex club basements and back rooms, a leather boys’ anthem to the idea of the permissible. The drums kick you in the face, and the electronics will surely tickle your fancy if not. Industrial and beautifully sleazy, it should be encased in plastic and sold as aural joy. In old school parlance, it’s an absolute banger. In Dreams is brave, but tackling Robyns’ Dancing On My Own is a wholly different kettle of fish. If you take on one of the greatest pop songs of the 2000’s, what are your options? Do you change the melody, the atmosphere, the words? Xiu Xiu quite magnificently slow it down and turn it into a torch song, like Scott Walker on an ABBA B-side, the churchified keyboards giving the narrative an even more heartbreaking tinge than it already had. Every word cracks his voice wonderfully. It should not work, but it works magnificently. The melody will still destroy you, but now it’s in slow motion.

These songs are from the band’s Bandcamp subscription page, where they release a cover version monthly, and there are presumably plenty more in the vaults. Stewart is the main man here, but is well supported by a long cast of players, including Angela Seo and David Kendrick. The selection is occasionally surprising, though one man’s obscurity is, of course, another man’s childhood memory. SPQR by This Heat was a wildly experimental track when it was released, way back before Planet Spotify. Post-punk before punk was properly post, this version is still angular, but it is more scattered in its electronica, a marching and strident thing that bows gracefully at the original while sticking its tongue out, respectfully.

GloRilla’s Lick Or Sum was, and remains, pure, perfect filth. A song that would often be narrated from a male perspective, it is a subtle as a sledgehammer and it does not care even slightly. Also helped by the enormous rhythm section, which sounds like bombs dropping, the version here sounds like a pornographic Cabaret Voltaire, and more or less retains GloRilla’s sub bass. A lyric based on the female gaze sung by a male, it is brilliant, fun and small scale political; a song so good, that you need to rewind it and pay attention twice. They follow this with a Daniel Johnson song that would break a normal heart, and one which caused Jamie to cry while recording it. There’s something about Daniel’s songs that live without artifice or decoration which makes them so devastating. Some Things Last A Long Time is a reverie, a eulogy for the lost and those who will never come back. It is simple and piano led, as unadorned as the lyric, and finishes appropriately on the sound of something falling down.

Triple Sun is a Coil song, who weren’t exactly easy listening either but here is a slow and orchestral take, while Jamie intones the same words over and over, only changing the tone, changing the meaning. “I swallow the one yew berry / you bury..” is vague and brilliant enough to suggest a million things, and it does, while strings swirl and stir behind him. Uncapitalised electronics dance in front of your eyes as the warm bath washes over you. The Runaway’s Cherry Bomb should need no introduction; a previously metal and/or rock song, this is played as if Suicide themselves had raised up from the New York dead, all lead synths and Kraftwerkian rhythms. It sounds cheap in the best way possible.

It is a journey through pop, goth and electronic style, it’s as industrial as a line of warehouses with various nods to metallic sheen and crooning beauty, which happens to be a close approximation of what they do for a day job. A small and precious work of art that rewards repetition.

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All words by MK Bennett, you can find his author’s archive here plus his Twitter and Instagram