On his first day moving into Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park, Jamie Stewart was held up at gunpoint on the street. Most people would move to a different neighborhood. But Jamie, better known as the frontman of avant-garde pop group XIU XIU, stayed and channeled the experience into the group's most haunting album to date, Angel Guts: Red Classroom, released this month on Polyvinyl Records.
Jamie has been writing vaguely unsettling but curiously danceable music about despair, solitude, unconventional sexuality, and political unrest for over a decade, accompanied by an evolving cast of bandmates. Hailing from Los Angeles, he formed Xiu Xiu in San Jose and released the band's first album in 2002. Earlier this month, I spent the day with Jamie and bandmate Angela Seo in MacArthur Park, where they both still live a year after the mugging.
In the early twentieth century, MacArthur Park was known as the "Champs-Elysées of LA," and I met Jamie and Angela outside a relic from that era. Langer's Delicatessen is an old-school Jewish deli that has served what is arguably LA's best pastrami sandwich since the 1940s. Nearby, our eyes were drawn to the quinceañera portraits and baby photos in front of photo processing lab Q-Studio, where Jamie and Angela posed briefly before venturing to the park itself.
The park has attracted the attention of musicians before, from Donna Summer to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. After crossing the intersection to enter it, Angela pointed out the bridge supposedly referenced in the 1992 song "Under the Bridge," about scoring drugs in MacArthur Park. Since the 1980s, the park has earned a reputation for violence and crime as many parts of central LA fell into disrepair. “I realize that’s something that three quarters of the population of the earth contend with all of the time, but for me it was something I needed to address,” Jamie told me earlier in a phone interview.
In the wake of the mugging, Jamie has completely reassessed his behavior on the street “to be cognizant of whether or not what I’m doing is going to contribute to my physical safety all of the time,” he said. Such thoughts permeate Angel Guts: Red Classroom, which plays like the band's previous records strapped to a detonator. It's peppered with references to landmarks and local businesses such as “LAWRENCE LIQUORS” on James M. Wood Boulevard just south of the park. Thematically, the album deals with crime, race, and the prospect of global apocalypse. On “Stupid in the Dark,” Jamie recounts a mugging against a persistent, pounding beat and whirring synths, whispering, “Pull out the gun and give me your money,” and lamenting, “You taught me a lesson/People are stupid in the dark.”
Xiu Xiu has always mixed political commentary with personal experience. This week marks the tenth anniversary of Fabulous Muscles, which perfectly married experimental noise with pop and to this day remains the group's most popular release. On Fabulous Mus
Jamie has been writing vaguely unsettling but curiously danceable music about despair, solitude, unconventional sexuality, and political unrest for over a decade, accompanied by an evolving cast of bandmates. Hailing from Los Angeles, he formed Xiu Xiu in San Jose and released the band's first album in 2002. Earlier this month, I spent the day with Jamie and bandmate Angela Seo in MacArthur Park, where they both still live a year after the mugging.
In the early twentieth century, MacArthur Park was known as the "Champs-Elysées of LA," and I met Jamie and Angela outside a relic from that era. Langer's Delicatessen is an old-school Jewish deli that has served what is arguably LA's best pastrami sandwich since the 1940s. Nearby, our eyes were drawn to the quinceañera portraits and baby photos in front of photo processing lab Q-Studio, where Jamie and Angela posed briefly before venturing to the park itself.
The park has attracted the attention of musicians before, from Donna Summer to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. After crossing the intersection to enter it, Angela pointed out the bridge supposedly referenced in the 1992 song "Under the Bridge," about scoring drugs in MacArthur Park. Since the 1980s, the park has earned a reputation for violence and crime as many parts of central LA fell into disrepair. “I realize that’s something that three quarters of the population of the earth contend with all of the time, but for me it was something I needed to address,” Jamie told me earlier in a phone interview.
In the wake of the mugging, Jamie has completely reassessed his behavior on the street “to be cognizant of whether or not what I’m doing is going to contribute to my physical safety all of the time,” he said. Such thoughts permeate Angel Guts: Red Classroom, which plays like the band's previous records strapped to a detonator. It's peppered with references to landmarks and local businesses such as “LAWRENCE LIQUORS” on James M. Wood Boulevard just south of the park. Thematically, the album deals with crime, race, and the prospect of global apocalypse. On “Stupid in the Dark,” Jamie recounts a mugging against a persistent, pounding beat and whirring synths, whispering, “Pull out the gun and give me your money,” and lamenting, “You taught me a lesson/People are stupid in the dark.”
Xiu Xiu has always mixed political commentary with personal experience. This week marks the tenth anniversary of Fabulous Muscles, which perfectly married experimental noise with pop and to this day remains the group's most popular release. On Fabulous Mus