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Jan 27, 2021 By Mark Redfern Photography by Julia Brokaw Xiu Xiu

Xiu Xiu have announced a new album of duets, OH NO, that features Sharon Van Etten, Chelsea Wolfe, George Lewis Jr. of Twin Shadow, Owen Pallett, Jonathan Meiburg of Shearwater and Loma, Greg Saunier of Deerhoof, Angus Andrew of Liars, and others. They have shared the album’s first single, “A Bottle of Rum,” which features Liz Harris and comes accompanied by a video directed by Xiu Xiu’s Angela Seo. OH NO is due out March 26 via Polyvinyl. Check out “A Bottle of Rum” below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover art.

The band’s Jamie Stewart had this to say about “A Bottle of Rum” in a press release: “About a year ago I bought a cheap bajo quinto, which is a 10 string low register guitar like instrument used in Tejano, conjunto and norteño musics. As it is a cheap one, only certain chords sound good on it. One of them, annoyingly, is the open ‘cowboy’ voicing of D major. When we started Xiu Xiu, founding member Cory McCulloch had a lot of rules for the band. One of them was we could never use this chord. It has become a creative game in the last few years to try and break some of these rules but in a way that respects that Cory had very good reasons for imposing them in the first place. I.e. in this voicing, D major is an insipid chord…. I had been trying to write a song on this bajo quinto to no avail and then drunkenly (A Bottle of Rum) listened to Liz’s song, ‘Heavy Water/I’d Rather Be Sleeping.’ A spark shone and feebly I tried to write something that, at least at first, sounded like it. I had asked Liz Harris, who is an old friend, if she would sing on this new record of duets. Initially I thought of her for another song but she specifically, although not knowing she had been the inspiration behind it in the first place, asked to be on this one. If the stars ever have aligned… well then.”

Angela Seo had this to say about the video: “This video, as often is with Xiu videos, is an amalgamation of things that I want and am into lately. When I was a kid, I always wanted a video camera and was fascinated with tapes, but couldn’t afford one. I’m an adult now, and can buy what I want, so I bought a used mini DV camera. I like how the tapes look, the specific way they capture color, and also the tactile feeling of inserting and ejecting a tape…. Also, I’ve always had a love for noir films and their penchant for shadows, fate, doom, and drama. Our friend and superb drummer David Kendrick (Sparks, Devo, Xiu Xiu) wrote a three part noir story and this is part 1. In keeping with the times, most of this was intentionally DIY, shot alone or with just a couple of friends and a tripod.”

Of the album as a whole, Stewart says: “The guest stars of OH NO reflect the types of people, and many of the very same, who helped remind me that the ratio of beautiful humans to shitty humans is more like 60/40 rather than what I have always assumed was 1/99. Although there is an ‘I HATE PEOPLE’ pin on my guitar strap, I hate them less now.”

OH NO is the follow-up to 2019’s Girl with Basket of Fruit and 2017’s FORGET.

Read our 16th Annual Artist Survey interview with Xiu Xiu.

OH NO Tracklisting:

1. Sad Mezcalita (Sharon Van Etten)
2. I Cannot Resist (Deb Demure / Drab Majesty)
3. The Grifters (Haley Fohr)
4. Goodbye For Good (Greg Saunier / Deerhoof)
5. OH NO (Susanne Sachsse)
6. Rumpus Room (Angus Andrew / Liars)
7. Fuzz Gong Fight (Angela Seo / Xiu Xiu)
8. I Dream of Someone Else Entirely (Owen Pallett)
9. One Hundred Years (Chelsea Wolfe) [The Cure cover]
10. A Classic Screw (Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo)
11. It Bothers Me All the Time (Jonathan Meiburg / Shearwater)
12. Saint Dymphna (George Lewis Jr. / Twin Shadow)
13. Knock Out (Alice Bag)
14. A Bottle of Rum (Liz Harris)
15. ANTS (Valerie Diaz)

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