Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2010 > November > 02 > Entry
CD review: Blue Water White Death (self-titled)
“There’s a darkness in you that I want to unfurl,” moans Jamie Stewart on “This is the Scrunchyface of My Dreams,” the first track off “Blue Water White Death.” That would be the unexpected-but-obvious-in-retrospect collaboration between Stewart, front man for the experimental rock outfit Xiu Xiu, and Jonathan Meiburg, singer and songwriter for Austin’s Shearwater. And that opening line, as it turns out, is something of a promise. “Blue Water White Death” is a creepily unfurling record, 32 minutes of atmospheric dread, the perfect soundtrack to a horror movie in the mold of “Picnic at Hanging Rock” — unsettling, mysterious, cavernous.
Throughout “Blue Water White Death,” Meiburg, Stewart and indie rock all-star producer John Congleton take great pains to juxtapose moments of softness — like the “Dust in the Wind” guitar on “Song for the Greater Jihad” — with spacey sonic digressions from the Xiu Xiu toolkit.
“The End of Sex” has the echoing, certifiably haunting background vocals of a choir, while “Nerd Future” is dense with jarring bits of electronic weirdness. Throw in the vocals — sedated and melancholy when they do make an appearance — and you have the recipe for an eerie album. Though no one will ever mistake “Blue Water White Death” for catchy or accessible, it is strikingly evocative, richly drawn and deeply successful at cultivating mood — in other words, the kind of listen you actually listen to.
Follow Austin Music Source on Facebook and Twitter.
Permalink | | Categories: Reviews
