With the much-anticipated on-off new series of David Lynch’s iconic TV series Twin Peaks seemingly back in the on position for now, experimental noisepop performers xiu xiu chose an opportune time to tour their own take on the show’s soundtrack.
But with great anticipation comes great expectation and halfway through the performance I was worried they had only realised half of Lynch’s vision.
Sure they had the hell, drum sticks sinisterly thwacking against metallic drum rims, the whirl of white noise and crackling electricity, the frenzied violence of an epic rock-out, but little of the heavenly gloss of the American dream that Lynch and composer Angelo Badalamenti conjured up.
Fortunately that aspect became much more prevalent in the second half of the gig in the matinee idol stylings of singer Jamie Stewart on Sycamore Tree and the divine crescendos of Falling.
And just like the citizens of Twin Peaks and their creator, xiu xiu have their own streak of odballism in Stewart’s exaggerated, man-on-the-verge-of-breakdown singing and multi-instrumentalist Shayna Dunkleman who I swear at one point kissed a bar on her vibraphone mid-song.
Heaven and hell then in perfect harmony, and all in an hour’s set.
Four stars
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