Jamie Stewart is the main force behind the project known as Xiu Xiu. In the past two years, they have released three full-lengths and an EP. Their latest album is Fabulous Muscles, which Stylus writer Akiva Gottlieb called their “most fully realized album to date”. For more Xiu Xiu information, you can visit their Kill Rock Stars website here.

Giya Kancheli– Psalm 23, [Exil]

The music here is performed by soprano vocals, bass flute and a string quartet and according to the liner notes reflects the pace of population growth and its effects on, particularly, the people of East Africa. More generally it’s about the loss of home and the destruction of community. Kancheli is from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, so he’s most likely eminently qualified to write convincingly about this subject. As you might expect, the sound is tense, slow and grieving, building up to a shocking fury during its 18-minute length. There is no hurry to make you feel how much terror there is in the idea of this music. By the time it is over, the idea of listening to the other 4 works on this record makes you need a drink.

[read a biography of Kancheli here, buy Exil here]

Oxbow– The Snake &…The Stick, [An Evil Heat]

Oxbow played last week with just vocals and acoustic guitar and if you have ever seen or heard them that might seem almost impossible. Instead, it ruled. Not to detract in any way from how crushingly heavy, creative and intense the instruments are on this song, but it’s the three short backing vocal sections that make you feel like you are never going to see anything good again and that you will live in this dank, jar-filled, stinking cellar for the rest of your short life. You can hear it reflecting off the walls in the recording, “MAN DOES NOT LIVE BY FLESH ALONE BUT IT’S A FUCKING START!”

[visit Oxbow’s website here, buy An Evil Heat here]

???– Eastern Music Station, [The Conet Project]

This whole thing is summed up in the title, but the implications of what these signals were used for make them chilling, bizarre and somehow funny. Basically they are messages sent to spies from just about any agency you can think of (CIA, SIS, BND, MOSSAD, StB, DIE, MfS, UDBA, and the formerly named KGB). They consist of repeated codes in a bewildering array of voices. Sometimes you’ll hear a young Russian girl repeating numbers over and over followed by a bed of vibraphone tones, sometimes it’s “ACHTUNG!” repeated for 5 minutes and sometimes it’s just distorted, short sections of well-known musical standards. All of these are commands or signals to these agents on how to act. So, if you think about it some of these are probably orders to assassinate someone or blow something up. It is a) really strange to be able to hear but not understand a death sentence and b) really strange that these waves flow though you all the time. Taken out of context they are obviously hypnotic and cool sound pieces and when you listen to them it is easy to forget what they mean, but invariably you are jarred back into their intent constantly while they are on.

[visit the Iridial Record’s website here, download more of the Conet Project here]