La Forêt, by Xiu Xiu

La Forêt

by Xiu Xiu

supported by

more...

	/

Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Comes with digital download!

Includes unlimited streaming of La Forêt via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 7 days

Purchasable with gift card

$12 USD or more
Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

$9 USD or more

1.	Clover 05:11	lyrics	buy track
I tried hard to be good to you I felt peace inside my head It's impossible to just be cool Please please please Don't don't don't Walk like my single hope We closed our lips and we called it our love we swallowed a clover made of lead It's unmanageable to just keep on living Please please please Don't don't don't Walk like my single hope I can only say it So many times
2.	Muppet Face 03:23	lyrics	buy track
Shall I treasure them red or treasure them light? Though bitter juniper is still food pull down your pants by the she ass as I run my tongue over your gums Oh honey bee buzz upon me Slip me a note "oh God what a donkey!" It smells like Falouja, a hammock rod This shirt clings like dander This kiss scrapes like rust Tiny tiny paws covered in dirt Tiny purring sounds rising like a pike Stabbing my hands like a sailor (savior) This last night of ours pathetic (forever) Tony tiny paws turning into dust Tiny shining eye rolling like a die Casting my fate to the grist mill (wayside) This last night of ours frightened and surprised Oh tuck away those ancient juggs of yours Reacquainted with the brush of a skin flake Cooped up between a jyrk and a hard place You sight your eye off the tip of your gun
3.	Mouse Toy 03:27	lyrics	buy track
How did I end up here Curled up on this couch? Where did you learn such a bold wink Whisking me off to your bedroom? Mousey toy This continent is lit by the holocaust Beneath my ribs (between my lips) Mousey toy How did two tiny ribbons untie And unfold into a lime tree? Then to darken a room for other men A dove hit mid-flight turns away
4.	Pox 04:08	lyrics	buy track
You look so ready to kill me With your bosses saw Mendocino, Klamath, Siskiyou, Shashta A wasp will find its way into our pointless life Its stinger will sting you away This where I live Dripping and marked from your paint Jesus is wondering If even he can love you Oh this is where I live A pox upon your house (a nuthatch will never bow) (a crossbill will never bow) Will you turn me to money? Will I shat my poison egg in your mouth? Signed with my conifer blood This plastic coffin always in the shade of your sickening daughters and your idiotic hobbler wife This is where is live Community college is waiting for them
5.	Baby Captain 03:40		buy track
6.	Saturn 03:19		buy track
7.	Rose of Sharon (Grey Ghost Version) 05:03		buy track
8.	Ale 05:39		buy track
9.	Bog People 03:19		buy track
10.	Dangerous You Shouldn't Be Here 03:50		buy track
11.	Yellow Raspberry 03:04		buy track

about

ORIGINALLY RELEASED JULY 12, 2005

Jamie Stewart is what Victorian society would have called, “an unsettling young man.” To hear Jamie’s band Xiu Xiu play is to be shaken, disturbed, and shown something original. If they say everything’s been done, and that the only thing that cracks of newness is what is often called “the unspeakable vision of the individual,” then Jamie is in a rare class. His music is new because it’s solidly Jamie himself. There is only one Jamie Stewart and because he writes honestly about his personal experience, there is only one Xiu Xiu.

Jamie sings haunted and tortured though always with a sense of humor somewhere below the poisoned blood. While he whispers and shakes and shouts about family secrets, mental sickness, and mortal rot—oft times from a feminine perspective—unnatural percussion cracks around him like wine glasses snapped at their stems. Guitars clang and break into damaged strums, and we are suddenly jarred into listening.

Jamie’s last three records, Knife Play, A Promise and Fabulous Muscles were exercises in pain unaffected for—or by—art and audience. Lyrics named names and journalists compared his music to Morrissey, Conor Oberst, and the more industrial veins of dance music.

Jamie’s new record is his most harrowing and beautiful to date. On La Foret, he sings about death, doomed love and the decay of relationships. As always, he becomes more specific. Jamie says, “Saturn” is about “wanting to rape the president to death and eat his body as inspired by the Goya painting of Saturn eating his sons.” “Baby Captain” is a “familial love note to my brother and a hope to mend his broken heart and offer encouragement.” (It’s like “Hey Jude” but more personal and too dark for radio.) “Muppet Face,” with its howl of wind-tunnel guitar, house beats and eerie harmonium, talks about “a cat dying and the negative understanding of how fucked up my sexual self is and how disgusted I have become with myself in regards to this.”

The album waltzes between acoustic parts so intimate that his shoe can be heard scooting on the studio floor as he moves closer to the mic. Then come the pounding darkwave thunderstorms where electronics and guitars go Mogwai loud and Jamie screams over the hissing, spitting deluge.

It’s the kind of thing that makes even the most confessional-driven emo sound fake and vague, the type of record that leaves you seasick. So the choice is yours. Listen to La Foret, shudder, go sit in the sun and be glad you’re not Jamie. Or, delve deeper, play it over and over, read the lyric sheet, and give your heart to the darkness. Not an easy choice, to be sure, but the rewards in going with the latter are immense.

credits

released July 12, 2005

license

about

Xiu Xiu Los Angeles, California

shows

Jun 05

Sneaky Pete's

Edinburgh, UK
Jun 06

The White Hotel

Salford, UK
Jun 07

EartH

London, UK
Jun 08

The Green Door Store

Brighton, UK
Jun 11

Vm Bar

Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Jun 13

Bar 56

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
Jun 15

Anklav

Almaty, Kazakhstan
Jun 17

KHIDI

Tbilisi, Georgia
Jun 18

Poligraf

Yerevan, Armenia
Jul 13

Disorder Festival

Salerno, Italy

contact / help

Contact Xiu Xiu

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Xiu Xiu, you may also like:

Everywhere at the end of time
by The Caretaker

supported by 36 fans who also own “La Forêt”

this is one of the best albums i’ve listened to in its entirety not a single dull moment in this album 10/10 for sure a top 3 album of all time psloan
go to album
Fag Patrol
by Xiu Xiu

supported by 34 fans who also own “La Forêt”

this version of Brooklyn dodgers helped me improve my posture no joke Dominic James
go to album
RARE: 7 inches, CD Singles, Bonus & Comp tracks 2003-2011
by XIU XIU

supported by 31 fans who also own “La Forêt”

i haven't felt this loved or understood in my entire life, thank you endlessly for everything you do. xoxo ⭐ amaris ⭐
go to album
Sunless
by Floating Room

Portland shoegaze that plays, as the best representatives of the genre do, with huge, hollow atmosphere against intimate observations. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 23, 2016
go to album
POSTMODERN TRASH
by SARN

Noisy, unsettling experimental pop in turns touching and political. From now until 3/5, 50% of proceeds go to Planned Parenthood/ACLU. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 8, 2017
go to album
Century Plaza
by Dan Sartain

Tenured punk Dan Sartain ditches the guitars in favor of midnight-blue synths and robotic rhythms on this album of minimalist synthpop. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 18, 2016
go to album
Tiki Fantasy
by XIU XIU

supported by 31 fans who also own “La Forêt”

forget is an amazing album and these b sides are equally magnetic Manalia (IVENEVERBEENHEREB4)
go to album