on Polyvinyl
Reviewed by John Payne
This all by way of passing comment on the challenging Xiu Xiu, never an easy thing to do. A couple of years ago I talked to the band’s main male Jamie Stewart. He was forthcoming and amenable, not a difficult artiste, and he talked about what he does with a seriousness that I liked very much. He thinks he’s a cranky, pretentious arsehole, but I don’t. Anyway, I do think it’s interesting that Stewart’s openly human persona doesn’t always reconcile with the often sonically and lyrically traumatized music he makes. There is some backstory: He told me about his father, a drug addict who died by suicide. It’s hard for me now to not project a lot of liteweight pop psychology upon Stewart’s musical madness. Like, a-ha [Read more…]
How to better classify an improvisational unit such as the Necks? Since the Australian trio perform their music on instruments associated with jazz — acoustic piano, double bass and drums — they tease us with whether or not they ought to be aligned with the severely rule-bound world of jazz at all. Whatever the case, it is hugely satisfying to hear the group’s lack of reverence for the form’s many hallowed conventions. With a healthy, punky boredom about all that, the Necks poke all ye olde shopworn swinging jazz a certifiably new bumhole. 