Xiu Xiu, High Places, Kyü @The East Brunswick Club,Melbourne (03/09/2010)

Mon 6th Sep, 2010 in Gig Reviews

Kyü are Sydney’s experimental popettes Freya Berhout and Alyx Dennison. The duo use keys, percussion, samples and loops to create playful textured jams, then slather the whole thing with beautiful harmonies. Tracks like the lush Sunny In Splodges show off what all the fuss is about.

High Places’ Rob Barber and Mary Pearson, current hipster darlings of Brooklyn, returned for their second tour of Australia on the back of 2010’s High Places Vs Mankind. With a backdrop screen running videos of still lakes, beaches and a birds-eye of the vast LA metropolis (where the band has recently re-located), the duo makes music that laps at you gently like the waves behind. Their lilted tropical pop is drenched in sun and synth and a generous toke of dreamy escapism.

It was a muted performance, not helped by the hypnotic videos and stage lights as inanimate as the audience. At times, Pearson’s wispy sweet vocals are nothing short of bewitching, taking you gently by the hand rather than the hip. Together with Barber’s melodic beats and simple guitar riffs, this subtle, lazy aesthetic works a loose charm. That said, over a set High Places can suffer from being too subtle and sound rather same-ish or sleepy, though more hooky tracks like On Giving Up worked to bring life back to the show. You can’t help but wonder how differently this set would’ve felt in three months time though, under the summer sun rather than these obstinate last dark nights of winter…

Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart appears first on stage as his own roadie, dressed in a black satin bomber jacket, with the words ‘die’ sewn in pink cursive lettering across the breast. Stewart is stocky, fit, square jawed and sporting a sharp buzz-cut, but the fine tailored lines of his jacket and dropped-crotch pants, together with the sweat pouring down his face contorted in emotion suggest him as the love-child of Morrissey and Henry Rollins. Hailing from San Jose, California, Stewart is the only permanent member of Xiu Xiu’s decade-long career, after Caralee McElroy left (joining Cold Cave) and Stewart welcomed new member Angela Seo for 2010’s Dear God, I Hate Myself.

Xiu Xiu occupy the niche record-shop territory of notoriously dark, difficult-pop, termed ‘goth pop’ by some for its macabre leanings – or maybe just in attempts to avoid using the word ‘emo’. Xiu Xiu present the antithesis of slacker rock – their show is intimate, confronting and excessively emotive and at points, the audience feels awkward, even repulsed, by such an unguarded confessional performance. Stewart’s voice is breathy, tender and camp; listening feels like being privy to his pillow-whispered anxieties.

Stewart appears to relish this excess as he self-consciously blurs boundaries between sincerity and irony, played out in lyrics like, “If you expect me to be outrageous / I will be extra outrageous”.

Seo presents an intriguing antidote to Stewart’s self-loathing; when not striking cymbals with confident, warrior-like brutality, she is bent over keys and knobs, appearing to micro-manage the various intricate electronic glitches or taut drum beats that texture Stewart’s playing.

While flirting with the back-catalogue’s use of experimental noise and electro-pop, the new record fuses these elements with nostalgic synth and eighties dance riffs, just begging for Manchurian comparisons. While older tracks like the sublime I Love The Valley OH – three perfect minutes of everything Xiu Xiu is about – receive a warm reception, it is these newer, upbeat anthems of the opener Gray Death, Chocolate Makes You Happy and the title-track Dear God, I Hate Myself that stand as highlights. When there are strong melodies like these driving tracks, Xiu Xiu sound like Arcade Fire’s Win Butler mourning the deaths of his other six band members.

Against these quasi-dance tracks, the stark near-acoustic moments contrast well, giving tracks like Fabulous Muscles and Hyunhye’s Theme the space they deserve.

Between tracks, there is naught but silence as Xiu Xiu let the songs speak for themselves. This adds to a feeling at times of being witness to an art performance more than a concert and indeed, Xiu Xiu challenge their audiences about their own expectations for pop music, demanding an openness that can be both uncomfortable and refreshing.

CHECK OUT SOME OF THE PHOTOS FROM THE NIGHT HERE