Xiu Xiu "The Air Force" LP

Six years after its original release, Xiu Xiu’s groundbreaking album The Air Force was re-issued by Polyvinyl in 2012 with completely reimagined artwork. A feverish and disturbing set of songs, but it's also some of the group's most accessible. Their songs play out like bedroom symphonies, bedroom confessions over chimes and gonging bells and industrial beats and buttery guitar leads that slide through the songs like a straight razor opening up skin. Elaborate, ornate, and bubbling over with noise, but with a sense of less-is-more; minimalism over excess. A 35-minute dreamscape of scraping urgency that haunts and disturbs. Clear Red Vinyl from Polyvinyl.