This is the opening track from "Ciautistico!" a rather unexpected collaboration between the famously, pretentiously enigmatic Italian avant-rock band Larsen and Xiu Xiu. The bands say that it's not just a one-time collaboration, but actually a new band that will continue to play together on and off. Let's hope they stick to that because this is an amazing album. In Xiu Xiu, Jamie Stewart's panicked, unsettling voice is consistently set atop equally unsettling music, and the combination can sometimes be unlistenable in its manic determination to disturb. Here the music is icy, unfolding slowly and methodically (although not without grandeur), never getting caught up in Stewart's panic, and the effect is staggering.
Shares