''Girl with Basket of Fruit'' is the eleventh studio album by American experimental band

Xiu Xiu Xiu Xiu ( ) is an American experimental rock band, formed in 2002 by singer-songwriter Jamie Stewart in San Jose, California. Currently, the line-up consists of multi-instrumentalists Stewart (the only constant member since formation), Angel ...

, released on February 8, 2019. It follows the band's 2017 album '' Forget'' and was co-produced by member

Angela Seo Hyunhye Seo, professionally known as Angela Seo, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist best known for her role in American experimental band Xiu Xiu. Seo joined Xiu Xiu in 2009, and has contributed to every studio ...

and

Deerhoof Deerhoof is an American musical group formed in San Francisco in 1994. It consists of founding drummer Greg Saunier, bassist and singer Satomi Matsuzaki, and guitarists John Dieterich and Ed Rodriguez. Beginning as an improvised noise punk band ...

Greg Saunier Gregory Lovell Saunier ( , born 18 May 1969) is a musician, producer, and composer best known as the drummer and founding member of Deerhoof. ''Rolling Stone'' included Saunier alongside Brian Chippendale (of Lightning Bolt) and Zach Hill ( ...

. The album is supported by the lead single "Scisssssssors", which was released with an accompanying music video. A second single, entitled "Pumpkin Attack on Mommy and Daddy", was also released with a music video on January 15, 2019.

Background and lyrics

The record is said to feature "themes and references" of and to "ritual, mythology, mundane and divergent belief, film, music, and resurrected motifs from preceding Xiu Xiu videos". It was also noted to be "imbued with the agitation, tension, sorrow and anger that has permeated the daily lives of so many over the last few years". The title is a reference to

Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (also Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi da Caravaggio; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), known mononymously as Caravaggio, was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the fina ...

's ''

Boy with a Basket of Fruit ''Boy with a Basket of Fruit'' is an oil on canvas painting generally ascribed to Italy, Italian Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, created ''c.'' 1593. It is held in the Galleria Borghese, in Rome. Background The painting dates fr ...

'', with the gender switch being crucial to the record: "When this title is a boy it is fey and lovely. When it is a girl is worrisome and rife with danger. Male martyrs are almost always surrounded by nurses, their mothers, adoring angels and other loving disciples wrapping their crushed and holy bodies in strips of herb soaked cloth and weeping rapturously. Female martyrs are almost always depicted having their skin flayed, breasts branded or ripped off with tongs or being stabbed and they are always, always alone save for her murderers. There is never anyone by their sides celebrating their spiritual life, only fiendishly reveling in their torture of her. It is perilous to be a 'girl.'" Jamie Stewart, alongside a selection of images connected to each of the album's songs and

's favorite and least-favorite lyrics, wrote of ''Girl with a Basket of Fruit'': "Generally, Xiu Xiu songs are narratives about the internal effects of external events. For this record ..the lyrics were taken largely from the internal effects of internal events: reactions to and explorations of other people's TEXTS ..and images." The cover of the album depicts the

sigil A sigil () is a type of symbol used in magic. The term usually refers to a pictorial signature of a spirit (such as an angel, demon, or deity). In modern usage, especially in the context of chaos magic, a sigil refers to a symbolic represen ...

of Vetis, The Life Promiser, whose name is referenced in the title track of the album.

Music

Lead single "Scisssssssors" was called "ritualistic-sounding" and its video described as featuring "cult-like imagery" by ''

The Fader ''The Fader'' is a magazine established in 1999 as an outlet for Cornerstone Agency, a marketing and public relations firm established by Rob Stone and Jon Cohen. The magazine covers music, style and culture. History and work It is owned by T ...

''.

Reception

''Girl with Basket of Fruit'' received positive reviews from critics. On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the album holds a score of 75/100 based on 11 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Track listing

All tracks produced by Angela Seo and

. Credits adapted from

Tidal Tidal is the adjectival form of tide. Tidal may also refer to: * ''Tidal'' (album), a 1996 album by Fiona Apple * Tidal (king), a king involved in the Battle of the Vale of Siddim * TidalCycles, a live coding environment for music * Tidal (servic ...

Personnel

Credits adapted from liner notes. Xiu Xiu * Jamie Stewart – vocals, synthesizers, guitar, experimental percussion, viola,

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, re ...

* Angela Seo – piano, vocals, electronic percussion, organ,

harmonium The pump organ or reed organ is a type of organ that uses free reeds to generate sound, with air passing over vibrating thin metal strips mounted in a frame. Types include the pressure-based harmonium, the suction reed organ (which employs a va ...

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stat ...

Additional musicians * Daniel Brevil – percussion *

Devra Hoff Devra Hoff is an American bassist, composer, and arranger. She is a member of Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory and co-founder of Mendoza Hoff Revels with Ava Mendoza. Career Hoff composed work for the ''Wholphin'' short film ''Look ...

–

double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...

bass violin Bass violin is the modern term for various 16th- and 17th-century bass instruments of the violin (i.e. '' viola da braccio'') family. They were the direct ancestor of the modern cello. Bass violins were usually somewhat larger than the modern ce ...

, bass guitar * Emmanuel Obi – percussion, experimental percussion, vocals * Ayo Okafor – percussion * Elliot Reed – percussion, experimental percussion, vocals * Eugene Robinson – vocals *

– organ, production *

Ches Smith Ches Smith is an American musician, whose primary instruments are drums, percussion, and vibraphone. He recorded and performed an album of his own solo percussion pieces entitled ''Congs for Brums'' (2006). In 2010 he released ''Noise to Men''. ...

– percussion * Ace Stewart – vocals * River Stewart – vocals Technical *

John Congleton John Congleton is a grammy winning American record producer, engineer, mixer, writer and musician. In addition to his production work, Congleton has fronted the alternative rock band The Paper Chase, and writes music for a newer project entitl ...

– mixing *

Lawrence English Lawrence English (born 1976) is an Australian composer, artist, and curator from Brisbane. His work is broadly concerned with the politics of perception, specifically he is interested in the nature of listening, and sounds' capability to occupy ...

– mastering *

Tara Jane O'Neil Tara Jane O'Neil (born November 22, 1972) (surname sometimes written as "ONeil"; sometimes credited as TJO) is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, audio recording engineer, and visual artist based out of Los Angeles, California, Unite ...

Background and lyrics

Music

Reception

Track listing

Personnel

Charts

Notes

References