In full: Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart

Very happy to be able to link to my hot-off-the-press profile of Xiu Xiu on the TONY site, as well as the full transcript of my conversation with bandleader Jamie Stewart on the Volume. Re: the former link, don't miss the list Stewart compiled at the end of five albums that scare him: a classic assortment of the perverse and/or extreme, with records by Cecil Taylor, Diamanda Galás and more. Speaking of Taylor, jazz heads might be interested to hear Stewart's further thoughts on the maestro, which come right at the end of the unedited Q&A.

If you haven't heard Xiu Xiu, I'd probably recommend The Air Force, which landed on my 2006 top ten list. Imagine an almost surreally perverse Casio-fueled version of Scott Walker, only with much catchier choruses, and you'll get some idea of the strangeness and intensity of this project. The new album (Dear God, I Hate Myself) is outstanding, and you can hear it via that first TONY link above. For the totally uninitiated, The Air Force's "Boy Soprano" is probably my favorite Xiu Xiu 101 track.

Six songs

Offered without comment. Just really been wanting to share these recent obsessions. Wish I had web storage space, but for the moment, I don't, so video embeds will have to do. The artists are, respectively, Chatmonchy, Death (Detroit, not Florida), Xiu Xiu, Cynic, the Outfield and Looker.

Little Stewart // Mercer on Mitchell

Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu on his stuffed-animal collection:

"My favorite is a baby watermelon in the shape of a cube with arms, legs and a happy face. It has been adopted by two other smaller, German, gay watermelons—one with glasses and one with a moustache and a seed-shaped tear."

Go to The Volume to read the rest of a pictorially enhanced e-mail Q&A I recently conducted with Stewart, who plays Brooklyn (Monkey Town, to be exact) a week from today, April 6.

Xiu Xiu is one of the few bands I know that's truly deserving of the description "harrowing." If you haven't heard them, 2006's The Air Force is an emotional gut-punch of the highest order.

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Just devoured Michelle Mercer's new Joni Mitchell tome, Will You Take Me as I Am. It's an intriguing hybrid--part biography, part criticism, part (for lack of a better word) meditation on Joni's so-called "Blue Period." I admired the freeformness of the book, its commitment to detours and tangents. There are some fun gossipy details here, as well as excellent supplemental interviews with the likes of Graham Nash. Best of all though are the first-person accounts of Mercer's extensive personal encounters with Mitchell, such as the time the singer dressed the author down--or tried to--during an intimate dinner party. Well worth it for the Joni fan and made me realize I really need to check out Mercer's Wayne Shorter bio.