A Band I Love: Xiu Xiu

Last.fm has an interesting idea of what a Sufjan Stevens fan is like. While listening to the "Similar Artist" radio station attached to the Sufjan Stevens page on the site I ended up on the familiar and always jarring sound of "Apistat Commander" a song from Xiu Xiu's Knife Play. It seemed peculiar that the uber-christian singer songwriter would lead me to the violent and eratic dynamism of Jamie Stewart's band.

There is an inherent challenge in Xiu Xiu. I've failed to fall in love with any of their albums on their own, each features a few mis-steps. Their best 2004's Fabulous Muscle features their worst song, the frightening anti-war anti-troup manifesto "Support The Troups OH." What Xiu Xiu provide without fail is far more valuable than the illusive perfectly likeable album. They walk through the waters of being always engageing.

When I saw Xiu Xiu last year at the Intonation Festival (still firmly a fence sitter) on the band I was stunned at how enwrapped the thousand or two revelers seemed. The band at the moment was just Jamie Stewart and a co-hort toying with a variety of instruments. They played their dark cryptic music in the steamy hot late July sun in the midst of the afternoon and weren't booed or even playfully heckled. In the end people even clapped.