Xiu Xiu Ready New Album 'Ignore Grief,' Announce Spring Tour

BY Calum SlingerlandPublished Jan 12, 2023

Xiu Xiu have shared details of a new album. The Californian experimentalists will share 13th studio LP Ignore Grief on March 3 via Polyvinyl.

In the wake of 2021 duets album OH NO, Xiu Xiu are once again operating as a trio, as Jamie Stewart and Angela Seo are joined by old friend and new member David Kendrick (Sparks, Devo, Gleaming Spires).

The 10-track Ignore Grief is characterized as "a record of halves" in press materials. For instance, Seo sings on half the record, while Stewart sings on the other. Sonically, it's said that "half of the songs are experimental industrial," while the other half "are experimental modern classical."

Going deeper, songs are further divided into "real" and "imaginary":

The real songs attempt to turn the worst life has offered, to five people the band is connected with, into some kind of desperate shape that does something, anything, other than grind and brutalize their hearts and memory within these stunningly horrendous experiences.

The imaginary songs are an expansion and abstract exploration of the early rock and roll "Teen Tragedy" genre as jumping off point to decontaminate the band's own overwhelming emotions in knowing and living with what has happened to these five people


The first of the songs to arrive is "Maybae Baeby," which you can hear below alongside an unsettling video helmed by Seo.

"In 'Maybae Baeby,' the singer's viewpoint is of a young person hiding in a fantastical conversation with a tarantula in order to escape a physically abusive parent," Stewart shares. "We were hiding within this fantasy of a fantasy, following the model of the late 1950s sub-genre of 'Teen Tragedy Songs,' to try and find a way to come to terms with a number of staggeringly horrendous events that occurred to people close to the band over the last 2 years."

Seo adds of her visuals, "The video is, for better or worse, about literal isolation, all the things we tell ourselves to should do or not do, forcing open a small crack and crawling deep into it, even if we know we shouldn't, just to get away to somewhere else, even if it's worse."

Xiu Xiu have also made plans to take Ignore Grief on tour in North America this spring, and you can find their currently confirmed tour dates below.

Pre-order Ignore Grief.


Ignore Grief:

1. The Real Chaos Cha Cha Cha
2. 666 Photos of Nothing
3. Esquerita, Little Richard
4. Maybae Baeby
5. Tarsier, Tarsier, Tarsier, Tarsier
6. Pahrump
7. Border Factory
8. Dracula Parrot, Moon Moth
9. Brothel Creeper
10. For M

Xiu Xiu 2023 Tour Dates:

04/02 San Diego, CA - Soda Bar 
04/03 Phoenix, AZ - Valley Bar 
04/04 Tucson, AZ - 191 Toole 
04/05 Albuquerque, NM - Sister Bar 
04/06 Denton, TX - Rubber Gloves 
04/07 Austin, TX - Elysium 
04/09 New Orleans, LA - Gasa Gasa 
04/10 Baton Rouge, LA - Chelsea's Live 
04/12 Memphis, TN - Greenroom - Crosstown Arts 
04/13 Nashville, TN - The Blue Room - Third Man Records 
04/14 Atlanta, GA - The Earl 
04/15 Savannah, GA - Lodge Of Sorrows 
04/16 Durham, NC - Motorco Music Hall 
04/18 Washington, DC - Black Cat 
04/19 New York, NY - LPR 
04/20 Philadelphia, PA - PhilaMOCA 
04/21 Baltimore, MD - Metro Gallery 
04/22 Harrisburg, PA - Stage on Herr 
04/23 Cleveland, OH - Beachland Ballroom 
04/25 Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle 
04/26 Milwaukee, WI - Cactus Club 
04/27 Rock Island, IL - Rozz Tozz 
04/28 Iowa City, IA - Trumpet Blossom 
04/29 Lawrence, KS - The Bottleneck 
04/30 Denver, CO - HQ 
05/01 Salt Lake City, UT - Urban Lounge 
05/03 Seattle, WA - The Vera Project 
05/04 Portland, OR - Holocene 
05/05 San Francisco, CA - The Chapel 
05/07 Los Angeles, CA - Zebulon

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