San Jose's Xiu Xiu performs live at the Chapel on March 19th. This legendary Bay Area will be playing all over the country in support of their new album, FORGET.

FORGET was recorded during a period of epic productivity for Xiu Xiu. While writing FORGET, they released the lauded Plays the Music of Twin Peaks, collaborated with Mitski on a song for an upcoming John Cameron Mitchell film, composed music for art installations by Danh Vo, recorded an album with Merzbow and scored an experimental reworking of the Mozart opera, The Magic Flute. All of this frantic, external activity lead to a softly damaged dreaminess and broadened intent that has not been heard before in other Xiu Xiu works. The album was produced by John Congleton (Blondie, Sigur Ros), Greg Saunier of Deerhoof and Xiu Xiu's own Angela Seo.

​Make sure you don't miss this show!

It seems only yesterday that the Los Angeles trio Superhumanoids sculpted cane sugar citadels in the EP "Parasite Paradise", after their new wave adrenaline debut "Urgency" in 2010. When The Deli last spoke with the band, singer/guitarist Cameron Parkins admitted to indulging in "our more pronounced production traits," remixing tracks from Local Natives, Xiu Xiu, New Beat Fund, and more. Then in 2013, Superhumanoids went molecular and built tones from scratch in the charged LP Exhibitionists, only to mutate their sophomore game two years later with the confident electropop nightwalk Do You Feel OK? At this point it's pretty clear that Sarah Chernoff's voice goes well with everything — even copious amounts of gamma radiation.

So it's not just that we like Superhumanoid's diverse and uniquely superhuman sound.

We really like Superhumanoids' shared devotion to secret-formula serums, and occasionally exposing their friends' tracks to mutagenic chemicals.

We like that they're throwing a homecoming party to end their Fall Tour, with Blackbird Blackbird and Rush Midnight on Wednesday, 10/14 at The El Rey Theatre.

But what we like most about Superhumanoids: their songs are always free to stream online. Seriously. - Ryan Mo

Xiu Xiu may be getting a little too big for the britches of The Deli Magazine San Francisco, but we'd like to give them a shout anyway. It is important for us to continue to highlight this local music duo because they are an emerging experimental art rock powerhouse who will probably never get the mainstream or even indie media coverage they deserve due to their highly off kilter and at times, grotesque art and music style.

This Friday (May 15th), Xiu Xiu will be supporting the soulful Canadian rock band, Timber Timbre at The Fillmore in San Francisco. Timber Timbre sounds like a nice blend of The Black Angels and The Black Keys. They sound good and they sound cool (like James Dean cool), so experiencing their live show after Xiu Xiu's out of the box performance will allow you to let your hair down and dance and shuffle around a bit. Don't miss this show!

When one thinks of Nina Simone, immediate visions of strikingly beautiful, heart wrenching messages accompanied by somber jazz melodies are called to the forefront of one's mind, and when one thinks of San Jose-based experimental group Xiu Xiu, their radically innovative style isn't one that is necessarily pegged in the same category. Nevertheless, the band's album Nina offers a mind-blowing interpretation of the late songstress' classic tunes. Xiu Xiu's cover of Don't Smoke In Bed maintains the same somber, melancholy theme it was originally created with, but with an added eerie twist of Jamie Stewert's dramatic, breathy, stark and masculine vocals . Pirate Jenny bursts in with leading jazz lines (thanks to saxophonists Tim Berne and Tony Malaby) and a seemingly endless supply of hypnotic experimental sounds, only to wind back down as Stewart delicately whispers Nina’s masterfully crafted tale down the listener's necks. Every component of this cover album fits together beautifully like a bluesy, emotion- laden puzzle of a homage. Nina offers a portal to a world of new possibilities for a revival of classics. -Kat Collins