Xiu Xiu are an archetypally "difficult" band. Hard to measure and, at times, hard to digest, they are experimental in the most literal meaning—not musicians exploring "experimental genres" of music, but ones who actually experiment, leading to music whose ideas travel the map so broadly as to be deemed unclassifiable when put together. This approach has led the band to develop passionate followers but also put themselves in a position where these constant new approaches not only alienate the mainstream but past fans as well.
Given this perspective, the band’s latest release, Plays the Music of Twin Peaks, makes a lot of sense. It’s easy to see parallels between Xiu Xiu and David Lynch—both are challenging, uncompromising artists unafraid of real experimentation or the uneven results that come from it. Though the passing of time (and specifically the post-Mulholland Drive afterglow) has seen public view of the man’s work elevated to near-canonical status, for much of his career Lynch was seen less as a genius and more as a fascinating but flawed artist obsessed with the '50s and the death of the American Dream.
Perhaps nowhere is this mix of "Wow!" and "Ungh :-/" on display more in Lynch’s work than in 1990’s groundbreaking show "Twin Peaks." "Twin Peaks" was a watershed moment—the first time anyone had attempted to port sinister art-house cinema vision to Big Three television, that mainest of mainstreams—but despite What It Did and What It Meant, "Twin Peaks" was still a messy failure that devolved into a soap opera slop—James’s search for meaning, Dick Tremayne, BILLY ZANE!!!—difficult for even diehard fans to stick by. But if you "got it" anyway, it just didn’t matter. You just put on headphones, kept watching and felt ok knowing it made you feel ok.
One of the reasons why Lynch’s work always hit hard was his way with music and sound, particularly his partnership with Angelo Badalamenti. The score to "Twin Peaks" is arguably Badalamenti's crown jewel, and Xiu Xiu do it justice. Their success here is twofold: Not only do they capture the haunted spirit of the show, they also provide Xiu Xiu fans with one of their strongest releases in awhile.
The simple, live-in-the-studio recorded feel helps keep the band grounded and the sound uniform, giving it the sense of a live performance. They skip the obvious choice of "Falling" as opener--the vocal version of the famous theme, the first music you hear on the show and "Twin Peaks"’s most recognizable number--and opts for the instrumental "Laura Palmer’s Theme," which begins not with the famous Moby-sampled synth but instead a very portentous tom drum thud followed by sustain-pedaled piano notes. The choice here indicates upfront that they intend to evoke something deeper and more resonant than simple nostalgia.
"Laura Palmer’s Theme" is followed by "Into the Night," the album’s best track, and one of three with vocals. The original, featuring Julee Cruise, is hard to top, but this version is bold and ominous, propulsive and mysterious. In a way, Stewart's manic delivery suits this material better than it sometimes does on his own. On the last vocal number, "Sycamore Tree," they take a tune originally sung by jazz legend Little Jimmy Scott and bring it closer to "a Xiu Xiu song" (if such a thing exists, I guess), than anything else on Plays. Stewart channels the dead Scott with a caricatured capital-P Performance that succeeds without feeling fake or contrived. On “Falling,” Stewart relies on the soaring, heart-tweaking power of the song without overselling it. While Stewart’s singing in Xiu Xiu often feels like it's been appended on top of or along side of the music it accompanies, on these three it feels threaded into its fabric. I even found myself yearning for a Xiu Xiu version of "Just You," the corny and inexplicable '50s ballad sung by Laura Palmer’s boyfriend James.
The instrumentals are nearly as strong, including "Packard’s Vibration," which begins as a vibraphone-led jazz number before the distorted guitar and shimmering synths help it achieve lift-off. The only real misstep is the closer, "Josie’s Past," which adds spoken word readings of entries from "Laura Palmer’s Diary" by band member Angela Seo. The vocals, spoken in stilted, accented English, only call attention to the terrible cheesiness of the writing—and, god, at nearly eight minutes, it nearly dares you to stop listening before the end. Stewart gives a perfectly ridiculous thirty second reading of the '40s song "Mairzy Doats" (sung by Laura’s dad Leland Palmer on the show) five minutes in and the whole track would have worked better as a 60 second bit with just that.
These are minor gripes, though. Appreciators of the uncanny, the beautiful, the upsetting, the uncomfortable–all groups that contain hardcore Lynch and Xiu Xiu fans—will find something here. In evoking Lynch and Badalamenti, Xiu Xiu have made one of their most beautiful and listenable albums, one that highlights everything the band does well while shaving down the rough edges that often turn away foes and friends alike.
