|
Xiu Xiu is an American experimental noisepop group originally from San Jose, California. The band is the brainchild of singer-songwriter Jamie Stewart, who has been its only constant member since its inception. As of 2009, his bandmate has been Angela Seo. The band's name is taken from the 1998 Chinese film ''Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl''. ==History== Jamie Stewart formed Xiu Xiu in 2002 after his previous band, Ten in the Swear Jar, disbanded.〔 Stewart and Cory McCullough continued from the previous group, and were joined by Yvonne Chen and Lauren Andrews.〔 The band's sound was characterized by its use of indigenous instruments and programmed drums in place of traditional rock instruments: harmonium, mandolin, brass bells, gongs, keyboards, and a cross between a guitarrón mexicano and a cello for bass.〔 The band's name comes from the film ''Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl''. In Stewart's description, the film's theme is that of no resolution—that awful things happen to the protagonist throughout the film and she dies at the end. The band found its first tracks to match the "rotten realness" spirit of the film, "that sometimes life turns out with a worst possible case scenario".〔 Stewart said Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car", which Xiu Xiu covered on ''A Promise'', had a similar theme.〔 He later added that the band was a product of San Jose pirate radio stations that played house, hi-NRG, freestyle, and techno, which Stewart considered unpretentious, plain, heartbroken, clear, and based around dancing away sadness. He said he wrote his first Xiu Xiu song after leaving a San Jose dance club alone on a Christmas night: "Xiu Xiu came from feeling stupid and lonely and then wanting to dance it away, but having the club and its music only magnify that stupid and lonely feeling."〔 In the period between their first two albums, ''Knife Play'' and ''A Promise'', the band recorded the ''Chapel of the Chimes'' EP and Stewart had "a lot of really bad" events in his personal life.〔 ''Chapel of the Chimes'' was recorded alongside ''A Promise'', but the songs were separated based on what would fit best on the album and EP. Stewart's voice was more prominent in ''A Promise'' as Stewart had been singing more at the time. They tended to write their songs while they were recording in the studio. At the time of ''A Promise'', Stewart said that he was influenced by gamelan and Japanese and Korean folk music, and had been listening to contemporary classical and "gay dance music".〔 In 2003, Stewart told Pitchfork that the band's live shows were starkly different from the recorded material. He said this was largely due to the technical limitations of being able to reproduce the way it was recorded. In their live shows, the band increased the intensity of their loud rock parts, though Stewart reported their set to be half "louder, more dance-y stuff" and half "really quiet stuff".〔 He said the latter was sometimes at odds with the type of venues they played.〔 The tone of 2004's ''Fabulous Muscles'' reflected an "incredibly, incredibly violent, incredibly jarring, and difficult to take" string of events in Stewart's life.〔 Stewart described his lyrics as "never fictional".〔 He told ''Pitchfork'' that Xiu Xiu songs are based around five topics: family, politics, sex, love and lovelessness, suicide, and how they are connected.〔 ''Pitchfork'' described their 2005 ''La Forêt'' as "less jagged, more elegant" than previous releases and more subtle than ''Fabulous Muscles'',〔 though the tone of the album reflects Stewart's experience internalizing the events of the previous years, which he felt was "almost more difficult".〔 He described the album as "about reflection and resignation and coming to a sort of resolution".〔 Xiu Xiu released ''The Air Force'' in 2006 on 5 Rue Christine. The album was produced by Greg Saunier. Stewart said that the year was "one of the first not dominated by personal tragedies" and that the album is about "making other people feel bad" instead of feeling bad oneself.〔 Its major themes are "guilt and sex as opposed to sorrow and sex".〔 Stewart considered it their best and most consciously pop album yet. He said that the band was obsessed with Weezer's ''Blue Album'' and The Smiths's ''The Queen Is Dead'' while on tour, though the album does not reflect those albums particularly.〔 McElroy sings on the new album.〔 Around the same time, they planned an EP with a collection of covers such as Nina Simone's "He Needs Me", Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's "Joan of Arc", and tracks by Alex Chilton, Nedelle, and Elliott Smith. Stewart considered doing an album of duets but his potential partners were not interested.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Xiu Xiu」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|