Xiu Xiu - 'Eraserhead Xiu Xiu'

Xiu Xiu - Eraserhead Xiu Xiu This is a log of my experience of listening to Xiu Xiu's new album, Eraserhead Xiu Xiu, for the first time, song by song in chronological order as they're played from the album. Viento Scrapy plastic/metallic objects, compressed sound, dragged over a surface near a mic. Distorted. Train whistle. Drone-like harmonies. Minor-key synths. Horns in the distance? Sounds like compressed air is blown through a hose. Bass. Bass. Controlled sounds. Back to calm. The scrapy objects go on and on; now they sound as though they make sense: there's a rhythm, a pattern. Is this a thing inside a hamster wheel? Pause; everything pauses briefly, then continues. It would be easy to mess this up. Xiu Xiu manage to make something great of this. It's fucking great. Carnival-y synths appear. It all reminds me of Conrad Schnitzler, the brilliant synth-music pioneer. The synth melody that appears reminds me of old-school German electronics experiments; not Stockhausen, more…