Xiu Xiu plumb emotional depths at Savannah's Lodge of Sorrows

The first time I heard Xiu Xiu’s harrowing new album, “Ignore Grief,” I was digging through crates at Graveface Records and Curiosities along side other aurally unprepared vinyl shoppers. The sounds of industrial cacophony, haunting modern classical composition, and singer/multi-instrumentalist Jamie Stewart’s trembling, emotional vocals, immediately grabbed me by the neck and forced me to confront the musics vivid depiction of all too human horrors.

“I’ll choose to take that as a compliment,” said Stewart with a laugh during a phone interview.

For over 20 years, Xiu Xiu, the project of founder Stewart, and Angela Seo, has been prolifically producing some of the most adventurous and intense music in indie rock through multiple albums, side projects, and collaborations too numerous to list. Xiu Xiu draws from post-punk, modern classical, industrial, ambient, noise, experimental, electronic, and folk, yet somehow, in all of the restlessness and chaos, they remain a pop band at their core.

More: Atlanta's Gringo Star is going 'On and On and Gone' at El Rocko Lounge with Black Hat

More: AURA Fest brings The Order of Elijah, Corrupted Empire and other metal acts to El Rocko

More: Animal Collective’s Avey Tare sees 7s at the Lodge of Sorrow

“Ignore Grief,” Xiu Xiu’s latest release, is their most fraught and tragic album, yet. The record is split equally between songs about horrible events that have recently occurred in their lives, and fictional narratives that plumb the same heartrending territory, with subjects including addiction, child abuse, human trafficking, and murder.

“We don’t put a lot of conscious thought into what we are doing next,” said Stewart. “We just try to be open to what the universe is directing us to do. I’m essentially insane, and music is a way I can organize the wreck that is my brain. It’s an attempt to observe what is happening around us and use music to organize that emotionally, and at the same time just try to listen to what the universe is telling us to attempt aesthetically.”

“We’ve always been very interested in modern classical music and post-industrial experimental music and that seemed to be what was coming out naturally. At the same time, very unfortunately, a lot of genuinely horrible things happened to a number of people we were close to, and in order to deal with it, depicting those events in the record seemed like, as it has been in the past, the most plausible way of getting through it.”

With the addition of drummer David Kendrick (DEVO, Gleaming Spires, Sparks) to the band, Xiu Xiu were able to explore new sounds that range from scrapping metal to shrieking electronics to pitch black ambient drone. Despite the intense nature of the music it never ceases to be engaging, and is often even beautiful, although it is hard to imagine that the band had a joyful time making it.

More: Dog Days Fest is bringing indie music fever to Savannah for three days this summer

“It was certainly rewarding to do it and we tried a lot of things we had not tried before,” said Stewart. “I would never describe Xiu Xiu as a fun band to be in, but I feel grateful to be in a position to go way, way out into a direction we’ve never tried before and still have the labels we work with and people who come to shows open to us trying to do that.”

“Ignore Grief” also marks the first time Seo has provided vocals for an abundance of the album. Her muted sing-speaking on half of the songs is an apt contrast to Stewart’s more theatrical singing on the other half.

“I’m glad she feels confident enough to do it,” said Stewart. “She’s always wanted to do more vocals, but she has a very particular — to me excellent — voice, but particular voice, not a traditional singing voice. She has not always felt confident about it in the past, but has always wanted to sing more. This is the first time she’s sung live is on this tour and she’s doing a great job. I think she does something very special with her vocals.”

At one point during the song “Esquerita, Little Richard,” Seo repeats the mantra “Ignore grief” until it become clear by the pain in her voice that it is impossible to do so, thus reenforcing the central theme of the album.

“You’re trying to force yourself to get through something that is impossible to get through,” said Stewart.

To deal with the difficult (real) subject matter of the songs, Stewart, Seo, and Kendrick were inspired by teen tragedy songs of the 50s and 60s, like “Leader of the Pack,” by the Shangri-Las.

More: San Salvador comes to Savannah to share music, create community in fest's final night

“Obviously none of them sound like teen tragedy songs,” explained Stewart. “Half of the songs deal with real events and they were incredibly difficult for us to process, so we thought about having the other half of the songs be imaginary tragedies in the same way teen tragedies are imaginary tragedies. They became exercises in psychological processes, but the idea came from being very interested in teen tragedies.”

“It made it emotionally possible for us to get through the other things we were going through at the time.”

Xiu Xiu are playing at Lodge of Sorrows on Saturday with their Graveface Records label mates Shouldies and Dreamend (the project of Graveface founder and owner Ryan Graveface). Graveface Records has championed and released several records for Xiu Xiu including a collection of Nina Simone covers called “Nina,” excellent vinyl reissues of earlier work, and a 2010 collaboration with Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg called Blue Water White Death.

“Ryan did an excellent job with that record,” said Stewart. “I’m very happy with that record.”

“It was sort of unanimously ignored or panned, but people are dumb,” Stewart added with a laugh. “He was able to appreciate it as a record and didn’t give us a hard time about it not doing very well critically or by a business perspective. He appreciated people trying to do something challenging and remained very supportive of that.”

As experimental as “Ignore Grief” is, Xiu Xiu is still a rock band and touring as a trio with drums, guitars, keyboards, and various other noise makers. Xiu Xiu have a vast catalog to draw from for their setlist, so expect a lot of surprises, expect it to get loud, and expect exciting reworkings of their new material.

“We never really worry so much about the live thing matching the record,” said Stewart. “My dad was a musician and when I was a kid I would talk to him about that and how I didn’t want to try certain things recording because I thought we couldn’t to do it live. He said, ‘Think of it as two entirely different art forms. Put everything you can into one when you’re doing it, and bear in mind what its limitations are, and put everything into the other form no matter what the limitations are.’ We look at it as another chance to be creative and play around with the arrangements and maybe sounds we’ve never done before. It can be a challenge, but we think of it as an aesthetic challenge rather than a problem.”

IF YOU GO

What: Xiu Xiu with Dreamend and Shouldies

When: Saturday at 8 p.m.

Where: Lodge of Sorrows, 415 West Boundary Street

Cost: $20

Info: graveface.square.site

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah GA concerts: Xiu Xiu at Graveface Lodge of Sorrows