ASUC Superb Presents: Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu

FREE FREE FREE!!!!

***If rainy, show will be moved indoors to the Gelataria Naia.*** Xiu Xiu, the Oakland band named after a severely odd and downright depressing movie and complete with frightening album covers, have already emerged as the undisputed masters of introspective, creepy, noise-pop, and they sound like nothing you have ever heard. These folks would send emo kids scurrying under their bedsheets. If Tiny Tim was a clinically depressed smackhead with major obsessions with Tom Waits' Bone Machine, Einstürzende Neubauten, the Residents, and Ian Curtis's darker fare, that wouldn't even be halfway to fully describing their sound. Basing each song on minimalist acoustic guitar or piano chords, Xiu Xiu throw in various influences, such as cut-up style beats and tape loops, electronic screeches, clanky percussion, and even sounds that echo a Javanese gamelan orchestra, making for a desolate, hauntingly spare musical arrangement that perfectly punctuates Stewart's singing, which ranges from whispers and whines, to all-out, anguished wails. Their leader, a prolific, yet highly disturbed man named Jamie Stewart, who is quoted as being influenced by "Henry Cowell, Joy Division, Detroit techno, The Smiths, Takemitsu, Sabbath, Gamelan, Black Angels, and Cecil Taylor," is coming to campus to make your lunch hour just a little more interesting.