Xiu Xiu have a new video for “A Bottle of Rum” off their upcoming album of duets OH NO due out March 26th on Polyvinyl. The project’s 12th studio album, it will feature collaborations with artists like Sharon Van Etten, Chelsea Wolfe, Alice Bag, Haley Fohr of Circuit des Yeux, Owen Pallett, Twin Shadow, along with members of Deerhoof, Drab Majesty, Liars, Shearwater, and more. Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart explains:
“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.”
“A Bottle of Rum” features Liz Harris (Grouper) on vocal harmonies. Stewart tells us he was trying to write a song on a “cheap bajo quinto, which is a 10-string low register guitar-like instrument used in Tejano, conjunto, and norteño musics.” Because the instrument was poorly manufactured, one of the only chords that sounded good was the “open ‘cowboy’ voicing of D major.” But, as Stewart shares:
“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.”
Struggling to write a song on the instrument, he drunkenly turned to the Grouper track “Heavy Water/I’d Rather Be Sleeping,” off the 2013 self-released album Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill. Stewart says:
“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.”
The video for “A Bottle of Rum” was directed by Xiu Xiu’s Angela Seo. Like her recent work on the band’s visuals such as “It Comes Out as a Joke,” “Pumpkin Attack on Mommy and Daddy,” or “Scisssssssors,” she combines cryptic storytelling with an intimate, DIY style. Seo explains:
“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.”
