To close the song, Jamie whispers “Fuck your guns, Fuck your war, Fuck your truck, Fuck your flag,” knowing perfectly well that the story he has just told backs up his aggression completely. The track’s introduction with pounding drums, wind chimes, and distant screams immediately sets the tone for the brutal detail with which Jamie describes the murder. This is especially true on “Mary Turner Mary Turner” where Jamie tells the story of Mary Turner, a young, pregnant, black woman who was lynched in 1918. Xiu Xiu has explained that the album was built on an interest in traditional Haitian and Yoruba drumming, which explains the almost ritualistic feeling of tracks like “Scisssssssors” and “Girl with Basket of Fruit.” This percussion makes up almost all of the instrumentation, with no guitars and only, as Jamie says, “horrible synths,” letting the focus fall on the vocals. Much of the music of Girl with Basket of Fruit is heavily influenced by both traditional rhythm based genres as well as noise music. The way Xiu Xiu captures the cultural zeitgeist is unparalleled in the modern music industry, and the music is so odd and experimental that it’ll feel like nothing you’ve ever heard before. It’s also clear that the only medium that can truly represent that pain is the dissonant, primal production of Girl with Basket of Fruit. That’s because it’s clear Jamie Stewart is all too familiar with so many of the ills discussed. It’s an album about feminism, racism, mental health, cancer, and religion, but it never comes off as preachy or ingenuine. In 2019, Girl with Basket of Fruitis an entire album of shock, both in music and subject matter. In 2004, in protest of the Iraq war they released “Support Our Troops OH!” with a horrific description of a soldier murdering a little girl in her father’s arms. Xiu Xiu has long had a penchant for using shock factor to get their point across.

Girl with Basket of Fruit, though, is about as far from pop music as you can get. Because although they’ve always been a little out-there, songs like “Wondering” from 2017’s Forget or “I Luv the Valley OH!” from 2004’s Fabulous Muscles have proven Xiu Xiu can write a catchy art-pop tune. Girl with Basket of Fruit was released accompanied by a poem on Xiu Xiu’s Bandcamp listing all the things the album “could be.” From “it could be your sister has cancer & they keep chopping parts of her body off” to “it could be your dad’s new husband gave you his boyhood viola,” it’s clear the album has a lot to offer and that absolutely none of it, from music to subject matter, will be normal. Tasty Tracks: Pumpkin Attack on Mommy and Daddy, Normal Love, Scisssssssors

Xiu xiu bandcamp