On this episode of Bonus Tracks from KXCI Tucson, Dash Rabbit, formerly known as DJ Electric Landfill, plunges into the raw and fearless world of Xiu Xiu, the California based experimental band that has been making boundary pushing music since 2002. With lyrics rooted in brutal honesty and soundscapes that swing between the beautiful and the grotesque, Xiu Xiu’s music confronts pain and vulnerability without apology. Dash Rabbit explores what makes the band’s work so unsettling, sincere and heartbreakingly human.
0:03: Hello, you’re listening to 91.3 FM KXCI Tucson, and this is Bonus Tracks.
0:09: I am Dash Rabbit, whom you may previously know as DJ Electric Landfill, and this time around for my short form program, I’m covering a band you have likely never heard of that being the California-based experimental alt noise and post-punk band Xiu Xiu, that’s spelled X I U X I U.
0:46: Formed in San Jose, California in 2002 by frontman Jamie Stewart, Xiu Xiu has an extensive career that spans over 20 years, and as of recording this, has 16 studio albums.
0:56: The reason I chose to talk about this somewhat obscure band is because of their sheer uniqueness, as Shu Shu is a band notorious for their brutal honesty that they put into their music, most prominently featured within their lyricism.
1:07: Jamie Stewart stated in an interview with Pitchfork that the very first night I ever wrote and recorded a Xiu Xiu song, I’d gone to this terrible dance club in San Jose alone on Christmas night, as pathetic and terrible as that is.
1:18: Xiu Xiu came from feeling stupid and lonely and then wanting to dance it away, but having the club and its music only magnify that stupid and lonely feeling.
1:36: Stewart claimed that it was moments like these mixed with their already traumatic personal mental life that reinforced the sentiment that sometimes things just don’t get any better, also stating you can get some kind of very difficult and small idea of how you can make things better, maybe if you fall in love with someone, or maybe if you found a different job, or maybe if you go back to community college, or maybe if you have a baby, or maybe if you get off drugs or some things will turn out OK, and sometimes it does, but a lot of times it just doesn’t.
2:07: It is themes like these that perpetuate much of Xiu Xiu’s discography.
2:10: What sets Xiu Xiu aside from just being another edgy and angsty band is their way of treating these sensitive topics with respect.
2:22: All of Xiu Xiu’s subject matter is also inspired by real events of the band or one of its members have experienced in other true stories which have greatly moved the band or its members in some way.
2:39: Their music may be shocking, disturbing, unsettling, grotesque, and extreme, but it is never exploitative nor insincere.
2:55: In other words, what goes into the music comes out of the music.
3:04: This sincerity is a major reason why Xiu Xiu has obtained such a loyal and diehard following, myself included, as they are able to portray these terrible things in a way which many other bands cannot.
3:14: Since we’re all humans living in a dangerous society.
3:17: Many of their listeners have undergone similar trauma and hardships and finally have a source which doesn’t dismiss or water it down like so much of Western society, especially music, is conditioned to do.
3:27: Music like quote unquote inspirational songs that litter commercial radio and top 40s chart and preached sentiments like, “you’ll be OK” and, ” Things look better soon.”
3:35: “You just have to try harder”, sounding like sheer and utter mockery to people who have undergone deeply traumatic hardships.
3:41: This is a large reason for why so many Xiu Xiu songs have been described as heartbreakingly beautiful.
3:46: There is beauty and misery and beauty in living through it.
3:51: This has been Bonus Tracks from KXCI Tucson.
3:54: Thank you for supporting independent media at KXCI.org.
3:57: This is Dash Rabbit signing off.
