Xiu Xiu covers Mozart’s “Turkish March” on an upcoming limited edition 7″ due out April 7th via the Venice Beach label Cosmic Dreamer Music. The release is the second in a series from the label, and it seeks to pair a musician and visual artist in a collaborative effort that includes both music and image. Here, Xiu Xiu is joined by the Brooklyn-based painter Heidi Hahn, and the two track 7″, issued in a run of two hundred, will include a signed and numbered archival print from the artist, as well as a small book with thoughts from the pair about the work.
Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart had some very pointed words about Mozart’s “Turkish March”, and he very accurately breaks down the dangers of this kind of cultural appropriation in an excellent discussion of the track featured today over at Brooklyn Vegan:
“The ‘Turkish March’ is one of the first examples of ‘exotica’ in western music. Mozart had an idea of what Turkey was, what the east was, and he wrote a piece through that lens, although it has nothing to do with Turkish music or culture. In the same way that Martin Denny wrote ‘Quiet Village’. it has nothing to do with Polynesian music at all, but it his idea of what that imaginary world is for a western listener. It is both a type of reverence and a type of racist domination. In that, they felt like they could take a concept they were moved by (this concept, of course, being an entire culture and history) and reduce it to a musical whim. And titularly, it is a comment on the Syrian refugee crisis with obvious implications and parallels.”
Xiu Xiu Tour News
Xiu Xiu is currently touring the US. You can checkout the band’s upcoming live dates below…
3/30 – Detroit, MI – El Club
3/31 – Chicago, IL – The Empty Bottle
4/1 – Jacksonville, FL – The Sleeping Giant Film Festival
4/6 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Bazaar
4/7 – Philadelphia, PA – Boot & Saddle
4/8 – Harrisburg, PA – Cathedral Room and Der Maennerchor
4/9 – Baltimore, MD – The Wind-Up Space
4/11 – Jersey City, NJ – Monty Hall
4/12 – New Haven, CT – Bar
4/13 – Providence, RI – Columbus Theatre
4/14 – Portsmouth, NH – 3SArtspace
4/15 – Boston, MA – The Hardcore Stadium
