Angel Guts: Red Classroom (album)
| Angel Guts: Red Classroom | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Xiu Xiu | ||||
| Released | February 4, 2014 | |||
| Genre | Art rock | |||
| Length | 41:34 | |||
| Label |
Polyvinyl (US) Bella Union (EU) |
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| Producer | John Congleton | |||
| Xiu Xiu chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Aggregate scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 66/100 |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| MusicOMH |   |
| Drowned in Sound | (8/10) |
| The 405 | (7.5/10) |
| Tiny Mix Tapes |  |
| NME | (7/10) |
| Pitchfork | 6.6/10 |
| This Is Fake DIY | |
| PopMatters | (4/10) |
Angel Guts: Red Classroom is the ninth studio album by Xiu Xiu, released on February 4, 2014. It was released in the US via Polyvinyl Records and in the UK via Bella Union. The album was recorded in the Los Angeles home studio of frontman Jamie Stewart, and in the Dallas, Texas studio of producer John Congleton.
Angel Guts is Xiu Xiu's follow-up studio album to its 2012 Always. The title of the new album is based on the 1979 Japanese erotic film Angel Guts: Red Classroom. Its themes include "racialized sex, double suicides, double penetration, criminality, [and] fear of physical harm".Tiny Mix Tapes described the album preview as "the most Xiu Xiu album ever released", darker than its preceding albums, and "the sound of Xiu Xiu's death". Record label Bella Union compared the album's tone to that of Suicide, Einstürzende Neubauten, and Scott Walker.
The album was recorded at Nurse, the home studio of Jamie Stewart, and the Elmwood studio of producer John Congleton in Dallas, Texas. The instruments on the album are limited to analog drum machines, analog synthesizers, and a drum set.
Stewart's songwriting was influenced by his move from North Carolina to a crime-ridden area of Los Angeles, as well as the aforementioned erotic film. Stewart's home was near "a park divided among four gangs, a lake routinely dragged for bodies, [and] a building wherein two infant skeletons were recently uncovered".
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