Girl with Basket of Fruit
It could be handfuls of reds It could be turning Caravaggio’s Boy with Basket of Fruit to face the wall It could be a commission by the Guggenheim entitled Deforms the Unborn It could be the demon Vetis, whose friends call Him The Life Promiser It could be that in 1918 a pregnant Mary Turner was hung upside down from a tree by a lynch mob while they cut out her fetus & that this could happen today, as it did then, without consequences for whitey It could be handfuls of natural pearls It could be collaborations with master Haitian drummers It could be doing the wrong thing together forever It could be long lists of how The Devil’s acts towards children before, during & after their possession It could be short lists of produce, insects & imagined blues musicians It could be handfuls of an insane 9 year old's feces smushed on the lunch table It could be a psychedelic Chicago house song about a pig & about your parents It could be your dad’s new husband gave you his boyhood viola It could be a collaboration with master Yoruba drummers It could be handfuls of cactus spines & a poison dart It could be your sister has cancer & they keep chopping parts of her body off It could be a conscripted arco bass piece that was a dedication to Turkish feminists It could be Jack Smith has a film called Normal Love It could be scisssssssors, air conditioner tubes, glasses of ice & seashells It could be handfuls of hot pink Make Noise 1/8inch audio cables It could be that Nature is making it clear to us that we deserve it and that we are making it clear to Her that we are ready, ready to go It could be a short novel called The Rhythm Section Talked about Drugs, The Horn Players Talked about Ass & The Strings Talked about Money It could be improvised vocals by Elliot Reed & orchestrated vocals by Eugene Robinson It could be that European religious paintings of male martyrs depict them surrounded by chubby, adoring angels, everyone’s tearful mothers & converted sex workers dutifully sponging out their holy & shallow wounds It could be that European religious paintings of female martyrs depict them with their nipples being torn off, throats branded & their naked torsos flayed while they are totally alone aside from the men torturing them It could be handfuls of Diamanda Galás & Roy Orbison action figures It could be that despite the confusion of this life, people who can still truthfully call themselves human try to push through 2019’s collecting horror It could be slowed down & fuzzed out field recordings of disappearing frogs It could be flat purple & black or glossy black & purple It could be mescal in a bottle & baby on a boob, hair dyed blonde for nobody, nobody move It could be handfuls of that you just have to stop being a wuss & deal with it It could be…
The duo’s latest speeds between fragmented beats and mournful balladry but rarely makes an impression beyond its sound and fury.
With Forget, Xiu Xiu delivered another fine example of their music at its most accessible; on Girl with Basket of Fruit, they return to their most challenging side, and prove once again that it's just as integral to their art as their dark synth pop.
Jamie Stewart had rested on his laurels for a while. Though 2017's Forget challenged gender norms and flayed a few nerves, reigning electroclash champs Xiu Xiu toned down the jump scares and turned in a rather seductive trip, with much of the same color s
Voodoo passages, techno rhythms and broken voices singing – Xiu Xiu's 'Girl With Basket of Fruit' is an unsettling reflection on art, death and society.
Xiu Xiu, the extraordinary experimental band led by singer/songwriter Jamie Stewart, has been throughout its existence a truly innovative act.