Xiu Xiu Drops In To Say Hi

You can always count on Xiu Xiu‘s videos to be hard to explain and hard to understand, and their latest video for the single Hi is no different. Whilst in comparison to some of their earlier work, this footage is relatively tame. While lacking the confronting vomiting we saw in the Dear God I Hate Myself video, it still contains the same absurdities and eccentricities that Xiu Xiu have become famous for.

The video is part-found footage collage, part-manifesto, and ultimately is a frantic jumble of the disconnected. The conceptual art-musicians are able to portray images of cats, wheelie bins and apples in a way that is both comfortable and confronting.

The pair behind the burning dolls, Xiu Xiu are made up of Jamie Stewart and his bandmate-of-the-moment Angela Seo. Stewart co-directed the film, which was designed to portray a crazed roadtrip throughout upstate New York, with David Horvitz. Stewart claims that the video is part auto-biographical, describing the 2011 Xiu Xiu world tours where they would “sneak out during the wee hours to burn dolls in church courtyards, throwing copies of Dick Cheney’s autobiography in a Barnes & Noble garbage and graffiti lyrics next to a gas station sink.”

Whether they are scrawling absurdities across bathroom walls, scorching baby borns or eating apples straight off the tree, we’re glad they dropped in to say Hi.

Details

• Directed by

  David Horwitz

• Release Date

  23 January 2012

• Band

  Xiu Xiu