xiu xiu's official instagram said on the post that announced this album "This is a record of halves. Half of it is real, half of it is imaginary." Chilling.
Cover is fire, the single is a banger, and overall it's xiu xiu releasing another amazing, disturbing record. This year is looking promising to say the least
What none of this record does and despite the oft repeated assertion, what Xiu Xiu has never done, is attempt to superficially shock the listener. Instead, Xiu Xiu has spent twenty years grappling with how to process, to be empathetic towards, to disobey and to reorganize horror; there is no other word for it other than horror.
The motivation for writing Ignore Grief to be about a child who was sold into prostitution by his mother, a junior high student who was kidnapped and murdered, incessantly choosing alcohol and cocaine over one’s family, becoming lost in the bleakest, darkest aspects of cultish spirituality and committing suicide as means to escape and protest a life of violent sex work is
These song titles, combined with the horrifying single have me so, so excited - Xiu Xiu have been dipping their toes into horror music for a while (literally the twin peaks cover album, Girl with Basket of Fruit etc.) so this feels like such an exciting next step