Later this month Xiu Xiu are releasing OH NO, their album of duets with an absolutely stacked list of guests. Having already shared the Grouper-featuring “Bottle of Rum”, they’ve today given us a second hit with “Rumpus Room”, where they team up with Liars figurehead Angus Andrew.
True to the nature of these two quite off-the-wall acts, “Rumpus Room” is a bombastic track, equal parts hilarious and unsetlting. While they might mumble about Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and Takis in the first verse, things escalate to a place of darkness quite quickly from there. Further verses find Jamie Stewart and Angus Andrew trading lines that heighten the claustrophobic paranoia of the track in their own idiosyncratic ways. And yet, the chorus of “rumpus rumpus room! / black black blue blue blue blue” over a thumping beat is hard to resist – even if it does suggest some kind of unhealthy pulverisation is happening.
The video for “Rumpus Room” features Xiu Xiu’s Angela Seo, who also directed, dancing around her living room in a cheerleader’s outfit and eating – you guessed it – Cheetos and Takis. She says:
“Does everyone have a deep personal childhood association with Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, or just me? One of the first things I shoplifted as a kid was a bag of FHC. I once bet my cousin I could finish an entire Party Size bag in one sitting; I won the bet but lost my sense of taste for a couple days. I was a latchkey kid and would ditch school and often go to the 7-eleven by our apartment, where some 20 year old kid who didn’t give a crap would be working and watch me play their single arcade game- Marvel vs. Capcom – in the corner as long as I bought a slurpee and FHC. Sometimes in my old teenage journals, I find flamin’ red dusted fingerprint smudges among melodramatic poems and fake runaway notes. All that intersected perfectly with the “Rumpus Room” song, and part II story of the video trilogy (1st being “A Bottle of Rum”).”
Xiu Xiu’s album of duets, OH NO, comes out on March 26 through Polyvinyl. the track list is:
1. Sad Mezcalita (Sharon Van Etten)
2. I Cannot Resist (Deb Demure / Drab Majesty)
3. The Grifters (Haley Fohr / Circuits des Yeux)
4. Goodbye For Good (Greg Saunier / Deerhoof)
5. OH NO (Susanne Sachsse)
6. Rumpus Room (Angus Andrew / Liars)
7. Fuzz Gong Fight (Angela Seo / Xiu Xiu)
8. I Dream of Someone Else Entirely (Owen Pallett)
9. One Hundred Years (Chelsea Wolfe) [The Cure cover]
10. A Classic Screw (Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo)
11. It Bothers Me All the Time (Jonathan Meiburg / Shearwater)
12. Saint Dymphna (George Lewis Jr. / Twin Shadow)
13. Knock Out (Alice Bag)
14. A Bottle of Rum (Liz Harris / Grouper)
15. ANTS (Valerie Diaz)
Pre-order/save it here. You can find Xiu Xiu on Facebook and Instagram.
