Xiu Xiu are releasing Always, their ninth album of beautiful but often melancholic and depressing songs. The new album’s track listing reveals that band’s collaborators are still feeling pretty down with song names like Born  to Suffer and I Luv Abortion. The band’s last album was 2010’s Dear God I Hate Myself.

Xiu Xiu is made up of band founder Jamie Stewart and his current collaborator Angela Seo. The bisexual songwriter has often cited The Smiths as an inspiration and has covered a few of their tunes on previous releases but for this new album the inspiration seems to have come from another popular queer band Erasure.

Alongside the new album, Xiu Xiu have also released a split 7inch single with another band Dirty Beaches, revealing their version of Erasure’s 1994 single Always. Sadly the Erasure cover is not included on the album.

Listen to I Luv Abortion below. Speaking to online music journal Clash, Jamie Stewart explained that the song was about a teenage friend who found herself pregnant but realised that she should not become a mother until she was ready to love both herself and her future child.

Follow Xiu Xiu on Twitter and take in their often bizarre but sometimes profound posts, like, ‘Do you think that if you became lonely enough you would have a robot for a friend who would compute its way into your heart?’ or ‘If someone were to quit is it better to make a big announced thing of it or just to vanish?’ and ‘Unless you already do, if you were going to prostitute yourself, how much do you think you would be worth?’

OIP Staff