Record Review: Devendra Banhart and Xiu Xiu split a 7"

Rating: 4

I have conflicted emotions about 7" records.

pros: 7" records are often beautifully designed, they're inexpensive, and often a good way to check out interesting new artists without complete commital, they occaisionally include mindblowing tracks never released elsewhere.

cons: they're too short: just as the music gets going...the record ends; they sometimes contain sloppy work by artists who know better.

Devendra Banhart and Xiu Xiu vocalist Jamie Stewart collaborate on this remarkable 7" featuring each of them covering one song from the other's catalogue. Devendra tackles Support Our Troops Oh! off of Xiu Xiu's recent album Fabulous Muscles, and Mr. Stewart interprets Devendra's seminal tune The Body Breaks from his latest LP Rejoicing in the Hands.

The two musicians got to know eachother while on tour in 2003. They both write and produce somewhat obscure music (Stewart's is more overtly so), but convey a shared emphatic pathos with vastly different affect. Banhart is probably sick of critics and fans raving about how ancient he sounds. First heard on crackly lo-fi 4-track tapes, he is a master of otherworldly, prophetic minimalism achieved through frenetically fingerpicked nylon strings and manaical quavering vocals. Though I'm just getting into Xiu Xiu, their music is much different. Though not as acessible initially (reader, you will probably hate the majority of Xiu Xiu's music), Jamie Stewart's music is magnetic, lyrically relevant, and brilliantly rhythmic in a manner reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails.


I was not initially convinced that Devendra's selection of Support Our Troops Oh!, one of Stewart's most obscure tracks, was going to work out. The words of the original contain one of the most seething indictments of idiotic bloodlust that I've ever heard: Cuz you're a jock who was too stupid and too greedy/ And too unmotivated to do anything else but still be/ The biggest and still do what other people tell you to do./You did it to still be a winner./You shot your grenade launcher into people's windows and/Into the doors of people's houses,/but you really wanted to shoot it at someone/just to watch them blow up./Why should I care if you die? Without Banhart's unnerving childlike/valley girl screaming and ominous acoustic doo-wop arrangement much of the original tension and impact of the original would be lost, but he does quite well here. The track is frightening and comical and tragic and really good.


Xiu Xiu have a somewhat easier task considering the majority of Devendra Banhart's songs contain a whopping two chords. Their version of The Body Breaks is incredibly danceable, a perfect electronic gem thankfully refraining from over-deconstructing the original past recognition yet dissecting it enough to let its melody and words shine amidst minimal backbeats, panned hisses, and electronic clangs. Good songs survive diverse treatments and Xiu Xiu's cover confirms The Body Breaks as just that. The cover achieves the complete opposite transformation of Iron and Wine's soundtrack friendly cover of electro-pop group The Postal Service's Such Great Heights, except much more interesting. Unfortunately, just as the track is spinning into gorgeous echoing overtones, it's over. Stupid 7".

For fans of Devendra Banhart or Xiu Xiu, this is a must-buy. For diehard audiophiles
thus-far unfamilar with either, this is an incomplete but stimulating introduction. And for those with less adventurous taste, well, check it out anyway. As overly cheerful tour guides say in Pop Art retrospectives "If a work of Art disturbs you, pay attention. It may be saying something important."

The price is right.