Featuring Xiu Xiu’s own special brand of discombobulation.
Xiu Mutha Fuckin’ Xiu: Vol. 1 comprises twelve of the cover songs Xiu Xiu began releasing monthly back in 2020. No Blister in the Sun, no Goodbye Horses, but I imagine, for once, “volume one” actually means something, though I’m not used to it meaning anything these days – thanks, Gorillaz. I love the selection; a mix of high-profile, outsider, and mindfuck covers. This is very much Xiu Xiu’s version of the simple ‘artist does other artist’s song’ covers project, but frontperson Jamie Stewart is just so radically different from everyone else, that no matter the effort put into recontextualising or reconstructing these songs, they’re always going to be radically different. It’s the best damn Michael Bublé Christmas album ever.
They have learned from the source material, and laid these renditions out based on their original forms. It’s simply in Jamie’s nature to discombobulate; this is where Devo doing Satisfaction is simply a reflex. Talking Heads’ Psycho Killer is, fittingly, hacked to pieces where its industrial update its concerned, subtracting some bits of its composition to louden its neurosis. They manage to make Soft Cell’s Sex Dwarf even queerer.
Each song is fiddled with to varying extents, though the bits and pieces of the source are more determinable on some more than others. When industrialising a punk masterclass in The Runaways’ Cherry Bomb or changing a few chords, adding a few keyboard solos, and playing with the emotional dynamics of Daniel Johnston’s Some Things Last a Long Time (and holy shit, is it emotional?), Xiu Xiu magic is sprinkled, and while few original compositions are improved upon, that was never the point anyway. This is the stuff that musically mothers Jamie Stewart, and the love is reciprocated. Hell, the famed explosivity of I Put a Spell on You (yet another Xiu Xiu nod to Nina Simone) remains, and Jamie honours Roy Orbison by testing their own vocal flexibility on In Dreams. This is sheer passion; the cheek of GloRilla’s Lick or Sum; the heartwarming solidarity of Robyn’s Dancing on My Own, which maintains Jamie’s ability to sound like a sad, gay ghost, peering from another realm in which this song is the only knowledge of mortal life. That minor chord really sounds like it is startling them.
It is nice hearing all of these covers in one place, and they form together to create a cohesive, concise ‘album’s album’, with tracks like The Normal’s Warm Leatherette and Throbbing Gristle’s Hamburger Lady acting as groggy interludes in the journey – the mere fact that they have the guts to take on Throbbing Gristle says a lot. It’s a great journey, no need for stopping for ice cream or picking up hitchhikers, and an even greater bit of discombobulation, like fun surgery, with tears.
Best tracks – Psycho Killer – Sex Dwarf – Dancing on My Own – Some Things Last a Long Time.
Rating – 8.5 out of 10
