Xiu Xiu – “Rumpus Room” (Feat. Liars’ Angus Andrew)
Xiu Xiu announced the duets album OH NO and shared its lead single “A Bottle Of Rum,” with Grouper’s Liz Harris, in January. The album, which comes out at the end of the month, has a stacked list of guests including Sharon Van Etten, Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier, Chelsea Wolfe, Circuit Des Yeux’s Haley Fohr, Owen Pallett, Twin Shadow, and Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg. And today, Xiu Xiu are sharing the new song “Rumpus Room,” a bracing blast of surprisingly catchy noise that features Liars’ Angus Andrew. The song’s accompanying music video was directed by Xiu Xiu’s Angelo Seo, who also helmed the video for “A Bottle Of Rum.” As she explains:
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-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”).
Watch and listen to “Rumpus Room” below.
OH NO is out 3/26 via Polyvinyl. Pre-order it here.