Xiu Xiu: OH NO – kollaborációk Sharon Van Ettentől a Cure-dalt éneklő Chelsea Wolfe-ig

Az art-rock sztárproducer John Congletonnal felvett Xiu Xiu-lemezek közül a leginkább pop irányultságúnak számító 2017-es Forget és a legutóbbi budapesti koncerten az ex-Swans-ütőhangszeres Thor Harrisszel kiegészülve bemutatott 2019-es Girl With Basket Of Fruit után a zenekarvezető-multiinstrumentalista-dalszerző-énekes Jamie Stewartnak volt egy kisebb idegösszeroppanása. Túl sok barátjában és családtagjában csalódott, de az igaz barátoktól és rajongóktól kapott visszajelzések visszaadták a hitét az emberekben, és megírt egy kifejezetten duettekre épülő albumot, melyen fő zenésztársa, a koreai születésű billentyűs-vokalistanő Angela Sao mellett olyan előadókkal énekel együtt, akiknek nagyra tartja munkásságát. Az izoláltságban írt 14 saját szerzemény mellé egy gyermekkori kedvencét, a Cure 1982-es One Hundred Years című dalát is beválogatta.

Az OH NO című album három producere a Deerhoof-főnök Greg Saunier, az ausztrál kísérleti zenész Lawrence English és Angela volt, és az utóbbi rendezte a klipeket is, melyek közül az I’ve Got Dreams To Remember című 1968-as Otis Redding-dal ihlette baljós/morbid sivatagi témájú Sad Mezcalita friss videójában a duettpartner Sharon Van Etten is feltűnik.

a másik két klipdal – az A Bottle Of Rumban Liz Harris (Grouper), a Rumpus Roomban a Liars-frontember Angus Andrew a vendéghang:

.
a teljes OH NO album:

Jamie Stewart duettpartnerei. . .

Sad Mezcalita – Sharon Van Etten
I Cannot Resist – Deb Demure (Drab Majesty)
The Grifters – Haley Fohr (Circuit des Yeux)
Goodbye For Good – Greg Saunier (Deerhoof)
OH NO – Susanne Sachsse (Stella Mars)
Rumpus Room – Angus Andrew (Liars)
Fuzz Gong Fight – Angela Seo (Xiu Xiu)
I Dream Of Someone Else Entirely – Owen Pallett
One Hundred Years – Chelsea Wolfe
A Classic Screw – Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo
It Bothers Me All The Time – Jonathan Meiburg (Shearwater)
Saint Dymphna – George Lewis Jr. (Twin Shadow)
Knock Out – Alice Bag
A Bottle Of Rum – Liz Harris (Grouper)
ANTS – Valerie Diaz

. . .és a számokhoz fűzött kommentárjai:

“Sad Mezcalita” feat. Sharon Van Etten
This is about feeling the person you love or want to love come closer and closer to a moment of disintegration. Someone you have loved more than you could ever have hoped for, but that you have always known would disappear. Not that they would leave you but that something awful would happen to them; either they would be murdered, eternally kidnapped, or be mistakenly lost in the desert, and that they know that you know what their fate will be. What is it like to have been in the conflagration of happiness? The line “rough dreams” is swiped from the Otis Redding song “I’ve Got Dreams To Remember”.

“I Cannot Resist” feat. Deb Demure
Angela told me that I never write a nice love song. After having written a love song based on the inevitability of that love being killed, this is that attempt, accepting flaws, accepting strange bodies, accepting insane obsession, accepting the horrors of how you treat each other, and yet wrapping your arms around a “fuck it” spirit. The line “more hot than sad” has been turned into the name for a literal hot sauce.

“The Grifters” feat. Haley Fohr
My therapist told me I have a “punchable face.” Even after unflinching, professionalized self-examination, I don’t know why but I am in the midst of an era in which several people I was/am close to, friends and family, seemed to have no trouble treating me with bald unkindness, lying to and fucking me over. Taking intimacy and open-heartedness and disregarding it without acknowledgment or apology. The world looks different after that many beat-downs.

“Goodbye For Good” feat. Greg Saunier
Two or three times a year I take a concerted and prepared mushroom trip into space, usually while in some natural setting. One hopes that the plants around you will share some insight into beauty blah blah blah, but the message I have gotten from plants is that they hate humans for all we have done to their world. I look at them and they scream back, “Leave us alone.” When we humans destroy ourselves plants will not miss us. In the event of inevitable environmental collapse maybe a little suicide kit is the best way to be prepared?

“OH NO” feat. Susanne Sachsse
This is about the joy of unrepentant whorishness, perversion, sluttitude, and bonk mania. Being oneself in the midst of puritanical exploitation and constraint. Embracing one’s physicalness without emotion or bond, and not being concerned with what mommy, your uptight cousins, your teacher, or your neighbor’s horrendous dog might say.

“Rumpus Room” feat. Angus Andrew
Perhaps parallel universes between snacks, having a secret place to hide from the other worlds, snacks maybe being that place, hating your body, hating that you hate your body, being hooked on meth, being hooked on vanity but being ugly, being an unsuccessful sex worker, being kicked in the mouth, being broke and being serial murdered.

“Fuzz Gong Fight” feat. Angela Seo
The roof of an unsafe bar is on fire, you do not care, you are the boss of everything. In the backroom of this same burning unsafe bar, your ankles are lashed to the legs of a chair with pipe cleaners, where is your daddy? Are you your own daddy? Do you even deserve a daddy? Only daddy understands. You will do anything for them, even if they never notice, and have so many other devoted toys to play around with/wrestle into submission.

“I Dream Of Someone Else Entirely” feat. Owen Pallett
Trying to come to terms with trans-generational trauma and the similarities and differences between who and how my parents, my brother and sister, my grandfathers, and I are or were. Horrible and inane things my parents said and did to us and maybe why.

“One Hundred Years” feat. Chelsea Wolfe
This is a cover of a song by The Cure. Obviously, I don’t know what The Cure meant by it but they have been one of my all-time favorites since I was a child. I had a nervous breakdown at the end of 2019 and as one does, I turned to music to be part of guiding me out of that morass. The Cure were one of the bands that were there for me and have always been there for me. The doomed nature of this song seems as relevant today as it did in 1982.

“A Classic Screw” feat. Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo
This song is a spell of revenge against a specific fucker. Sometimes magic is used for good and sometimes it is used for evil and sometimes it is used to crumble the insipid and release oppressive unending circular thoughts of anger and flabbergastment back onto its Gomer Pyle-acting, Harry-and-the-Hendersons-looking source. The incantations are taken largely from candle magic and Memphis hoodoo. I hope it works!

“It Bothers Me All The Time” feat. Jonathan Meiburg
As the least honorable inhabitants of our solar system’s most interesting planet (as far as we know), it is impossible not to feel possessed by humanity’s cruelty, stupidity, and callousness as a species. No other creatures seem to have the difficulty we do with being respectful towards what we have been given by chance, Goddess, the universe, Gods or some Rick Sanchez or other.

“Saint Dymphna” feat. Twin Shadow
Thee Saint Dymphna is thee saint of mental illness. There is a photo of her setting in the bar of my house and one at the desk where Angela has worked as a deputy of public health throughout the current plague. The song is an ode to abused teenage goth runaways, those I knew then and those I know now. There are so many reasons to run away and so many ways to start over. Maybe Saint Dymphna can help in this journey to a newness.

“Knock Out” feat. Alice Bag
Amongst the cypress domes of the Everglades National Park, newly released from prison, newly freed from the consequences of bad behavior but having little will to reform, there is still the chance for unbridled fun, romance, adorable chaos, and superb bird watching. Go as far as you can or at least as far as you want to.

“A Bottle Of Rum” feat. Liz Harris
Looking back is rarely a good idea but if you can lie to yourself enough perhaps it wasn’t so bad. Drink up sucker, what happened is not what you think happened anyway. Roberta is the name of a cat, but in this case, a stand-in for an old friend I should have treated better. Nostalgia for once, through the haze, nice? An old band mate Don Dias used to call San Jose, San Josie. I hope he is well. I learned A LOT about music from him.

“ANTS” feat. Valerie Diaz
Stoned out of my mind I said this dumb poem into my dumb phone. The eyes on the cover art for OH NO are taken from a sign on a beauty parlor that I pass when I drive to my friend Valerie’s apartment. Werner Herzog espoused the idea of the indefinable, uncertain context in his films. I love him.

.

a 2019-es Girl With Basket Of Fruit és 2017-es Forget című legutóbbi Xiu Xiu-sorlemezek a videoklipekkel. . .

Girl With Basket Of Fruit
It Comes Out As A Joke
Amargi Ve Moo
Ice Cream Truck
Pumpkin Attack On Mommy And Daddy
The Wrong Thing
Mary Turner Mary Turner
Scisssssssors
Normal Love

The Call
Queen Of The Losers
Wondering
Get Up
Hay Choco Bananas
Jenny GoGo
At Last, At Last
Forget
Petite
Faith, Torn Apart

.  . . és a 2015-ös Twin Peaks feldolgozásprodukció Angelo Badalamenti és David Lynch szerzeményeiből:

1. Laura Palmer’s Theme (0:00​)
2. Into The Night (5:03​)
3. Audrey’s Dance (10:15​)
4. Packard’s Vibration (14:41​)
5. Nightsea Wind (18:31​)
6. Blue Frank/Pink Room (25:37​)
7. Sycamore Tree (31:28​)
8. Harold’s Theme (38:16​)
9. Dance Of The Dream Man (42:12​)
10. Falling (47:22​)
11. Love Theme Farewell (54:20​)
12. Josie’s Past (1:00:44​)