Although the members of XXL insist that the project be considered a new band, and not a one-offcollaboration, I can't help but suspect that this might be the onlytime XXL will be heard from. This brief album, though strong musically, feelslike the product of a specific place and time, inexorably tied to thefortnight of drinking, reveling and recording during which it wasproduced.
Important
When James Stewart and Carolee McElroy make music together, they arecalled Xiu Xiu. When Fabrizio Palumbo, Marco Schiavo, Paolo Dellapianaand Roberto Clemente make music together, they are called Larsen. Whenall six of these musicians get together, they are known as XXL.
When a collaborative album between Xiu Xiu and Larsen was firstannounced, I thought it sounded like a very strange idea. I was a fanof both bands, but they existed in completely different mentalcategories for me. For me, Xiu Xiu represents a chillingly damageddistillation of emo and goth taken to its logical conclusion:aggravated, percussive, gamelan primitivism with the painfully emotive,embarassingly close-to-the-bone vocals of Jamie Stewart erupting fromits wounded, distorted core. Xiu Xiu is prickly and repellant, andoften laughably overwrought, but for those who cared to look closer,the music was frequently capable of a delicate human beauty andsincerity rarely glimpsed in underground music. In stark contrast,Larsen represented all that was shadowy and European, a band nowinfamous for the story of the way in which they recruited M. Gira toproduce their debut album. Larsen is made up of technically proficient,accomplished musicians with a conversant musical vocabulary,assimilating the history of Italian instrumental rock from Morricone toGoblin, adding a sense of gloom and bombast borrowed from Swans and MyBloody Valentine, and gluing it all together with a dynamic sense ofgroup amalgamation that recalls the best work of Tortoise. How in theworld could these two bands, so entirely different in their respectiveapproaches, ever see eye-to-eye long enough to record a coherent album?
Ciautistico answers that question, featuring ninecompositions that connect the dots between the XX and the L sides ofthe equation, highlighting the common ground that was always there, andcreating unique new alloys out of seemingly irreconcilable differences.The weird thing about Ciautistico is that it sounds almostexactly how I might have expected a collaboration between Xiu Xiu andLarsen to sound, if I'd actually thought about it instead of gettingcaught up in what a bizarre idea it was. Imagine if those sparserpassages in many Xiu Xiu songs—the ones where only the odd gamelancrash, xylophone note or errant tortured whisper can be heard in themidst of awkward silence—were suddenly filled in with lush guitars,melodic keyboards and precise drumming. That's what XXL sounds like.Imagine if one of the meatier Larsen songs suddenly had anall-too-human presence at its center, a raging man-child intent onspilling his guts in the most straightforwardly cryptic way possible.That's what XXL sounds like. Imagine if all of this emotive intensityand compositional pomp were broken up with moments of unexpectedlevity, or a cover of an Adam and the Ants song. That's also what XXLsounds like.
As any fan of Xiu Xiu must necessarily be, I am a bit of amasochist. However, for those who don't usually wish to subjectthemselves to Xiu Xiu's willfully difficult music, Ciautisticomay be an easy entry into James Stewart's world. A song like theopening track "Paw Paw" radiates with all of the usual pain anddelicacy of a Xiu Xiu track, but the members of Larsen help to flesh itout and turn it into an eminently listenable rock song, unlocking thehidden pop hook that lies at the heart of many of Xiu Xiu's bestcompositions. After listening to this, go back and listen to "Suha" or"Support Our Troops" and see if it doesn't suddenly make a lot moresense. "Minne Mouseistic" is something else completely, a sparse trackwith creepy drones, disembodied sound effects and random snatches ofmelody, none of which ever coalesce into a real song, just a bunch offragments left to litter the album like crumpled up poems littering thebottom of a dusty old drawer. Ditto for "Ciao Ciautistico," adeliciously resonant techno beat decorated with gamelan chimes thatdisappears before it can go anywhere, and is all the more enticing forits frustrating brevity. "(Pokey I'm Your) Gnocchi" highlights an areaof mutual interest between XX and L—namely, the fact that they bothare big fans of M. Gira and Swans, and it shows here more than anywhereelse on the album. "Distorted Duck" sounds like a typical Larsencomposition until halfway through, when a digital mallard quacks,fragmenting the track into something wholly other, music that is atonce majestic and ridiculous. XXL's cover of Adam and the Ants'excellent "Prince Charming" is truly something to behold, J.S. and theband capturing the essential absurdity of the original, but slicingthrough to discover something vicious and pathetic at its center.
Foran album recorded so quickly, under such ephemeral circumstances, Ciautistico contains a surprising amount of ideas and innovation, and each band seems stronger and more versatile because of its existence.
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