But as prolific purveyor's of the most uncomfortable, gnarled recesses of the human mind, Xiu Xiu have long been ones to deliver the heavy in the most traumatizing manner.
Throughout Jamie Stewart's self-critical deep dives that drove the horror of Xiu Xiu's back catalogue – from 2002's Knifeplay to his 2019 eviscerating display of discord and disarray Girl With Basket of Fruit – the debased and lowly has always been an avenue for Xiu Xiu to express itself honestly, with Stewart always the core of it all. He's fearless, diving headfirst into blacktop to excavate through the bowels of places most won't dare. He's a defiant among defiants, and he, along with Angela Seo equally spearheading his newly evolved lineup – now including David Kendrick – have devised Xiu Xiu's most agonizing collection of "music" ever.
It's difficult to call Ignore Grief, something so
amorphous and bleakly formless, 'music'. Combining aspects of drone,
classical, and of course, death industrial, this new album is a
collection of devilishly implied compositions that squirm, hiss, and
murmur like the most invasive parasitic species. When undergoing this
amalgamation of plundering dissonance, there's no clear end nor
beginning to these tracks. Truthfully, the record is one large shock
piece separated by track numbers for formality's sake – an
expressionist display of trauma unraveled in halves by the guidance (or
misguidance) of two hushed voices to remind listeners they aren't
entirely trapped in a hole underground, though it definitely feels like
it.
There is so much to endure on Ignore Grief and no
room to draw breath – like at all. From incessant, gear-grinding harsh
noise that has increasingly enveloped the band's recent output, but now
entirely, to their abstracted violent words spoken through quivering
whispers that unleash with a creep and crawl and, sometimes, full-bore
mal-intent, the band has constructed the most (in)appropriate headspace
for dark, honest thoughts to run rampant. Whether it's a sudden barrage
of horns squealing in random fits as heard on "Tarsier, Tarier, Tarsier,
Tarsier" or the mutilation of piano and strings scratching and clawing
against one another on the antagonistic album closer "For M", the stage,
maligned and mangled, is sinisterly present for the band's upsetting
way with words to burrow into the skin like poetic scabies.
As is usually the case with most Xiu Xiu projects, it is
challenging to determine what Stewart or Seo are singing or speaking
about throughout Ignore Grief without some context made
available through press release. Still, with images like "A scalping
knife is just a dull knife / How will I have worn my hair in this
exceptional moment?" on 'Brothel Creeper' or pervasive questions that
twist like said knife, "What / is your / fondest wish... to be dead / and
/ to kill" on "666 Photos of Nothing", the stirring trauma that composes
the record's essence is unmistakable.
Xiu Xiu are no strangers to conveying and grappling with
trauma, death, and darkness, but it usually comes from them pining their
own unsightly underbelly. That said, Ignore Grief might be the
first time the band excavates trauma fully from the outside rather than
within, with half of the record confronting horror and tragedy
experienced by five individuals close-to, yet outside the band. However,
the other half of Ignore Grief is made of fictional accounts
for the band to purge itself – vomit, even — of the pain they've taken
in from these five true stories. This collection of songs, if you want
to call them that, make up what is a well-intended attempt to show a
more empathetic side by telling the stories of others. Unfortunately, it
isn't easy to sense this empathy outside of a mere statement.
Truthfully, all of Ignore Grief is just fucking shocking, regardless of the band's meaningful intentions. If not empathetic, then Ignore Grief is at least admirable as an unabashed execution of the vision, shock, and pure artfulness.
Listening to this project more than once is an impossible
feat, an outcome I wouldn't put past Xiu Xiu for making this their
objective. Still, there's something to be said about listenability. My
biggest issue with this record is merely preferential; I would rather
the band dive further into its more musical side, where destroying the
conventions and structures of pop music has always been their calling
card. Instead, what we have in Ignore Grief can hardly be
called music; this is a noisy articulation of pain to be felt once but
barely experienced after. It exists to shock with the intention of
empathy; unfortunately, empathy takes time and is hardly elicited when
all things warped and wicked are at the forefront.
