Legendary cult band performs reinterpretation/tribute to macabre masterpiece
Xiu Xiu
For more than twenty years now, Xiu Xiu (US) (pronounced: Shoo-Shoo) has been known for their whimsical, unpredictable and consistently brilliant output. They have released more than 15 albums, praised by The New Yorker, The Wire and The Guardian.
Through their music, the band explores the complexity of themes like love, sex, death and injustice. Xiu Xiu – now reduced to the duo Jamie Stewart and Angela Seo – has collaborated with Liz Harris (Grouper), Chelsea Wolfe, Japanese noisemaster Merzbow and Devendra Banhart, amongst others.
Stewart – the only permanent original member – has a fierce admiration for filmmaker David Lynch: “Without him, I would never have become an artist. My entire life, I have relied on him to continue to guide me. His uncompromising search for emotional extremes, imagination, exploration, meaning and fierce courage has always been my benchmark for what art can be.”
In 2015, Stewart joined forces with composer Lawrence English as HEXA. Together, at Lynch’s invitation, they created a live soundtrack for his Factory Photographs. A year later, with the blessing of Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti, they released the LP Plays the Music of Twin Peaks, which immediately achieved cult status. Pitchfork: “It’s one of their most haunting and beautiful LPs.”
After Lynch’s untimely death in 2025, the band received the request to resurrect their Twin Peaks tribute. But instead of repeating themselves, they wanted to take a deeper dive by radically reimagining a work from Lynch’s oeuvre. The tribute became …
Xiu Xiu x Eraserhead (David Lynch)
The original score by Alan Splet and Lynch served as a haunting beacon, but Xiu Xiu turned it into a unique sound hallucination, combining field recordings, homemade instruments, organ, modular synths, vocals, pocket torches, electrical static and musique concrète.
The duo immerses itself in a nightmarish world full of sexual tension, industrial menace and bizarre lunar madness. The associated visuals – not a copy of the film as such – explore the disturbing, surreal and emotionally raw universe of Lynch’s debut. The result is a living video installation meets a cinematographic nightmare.
For those wanting to dive deeper into the wonderful world of Xiu Xiu, the fanzine Ready to Die for Xiu Xiu is a great place to start. Jamie Stewart: "Ready to Die for Xiu Xiu makes me insane. Being presented with a work by someone who has put so much care, emotion, intellectual love, skill and remarkable attention to detail into that very thing which I am at odds to do opens up so much feeling for me, and such a wide range of feeling, that I am physically overwhelmed by the honour."
If you want to delve deeper into Xiu Xiu’s music, listen further here.
