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**Xiu Xiu - Girl With Basket Of Fruit ★★★★☆**

Jamie Stewart has never been one to shy away from the abyss, but on Xiu Xiu's tenth studio album, he doesn't just stare into it – he builds a twisted playground there and invites us all to come and play. Girl With Basket Of Fruit finds Stewart and his experimental collective at their most unhinged and paradoxically focused, crafting an hour-long descent into madness that somehow emerges as their most cohesive statement in years.

The album arrives after a period of relative stability for the perpetually shape-shifting project. Following 2017's FORGET, which saw Stewart grappling with personal trauma through characteristically oblique means, Girl With Basket Of Fruit feels like the sound of someone who's stopped trying to make sense of the senseless and instead decided to weaponise the chaos. The title itself, borrowed from a Caravaggio painting, hints at the classical beauty that Stewart delights in corrupting – though here, the fruit has long since rotted, and the basket is on fire.

Musically, this is Xiu Xiu at their most gleefully destructive. The album careens between genres with the reckless abandon of a shopping trolley pushed down a hill, incorporating everything from harsh noise and industrial clanging to moments of surprising melodic clarity. Stewart's vocals remain the constant – a reedy, vulnerable instrument that can shift from whispered confession to primal scream within the span of a single line. It's art-rock in the truest sense, prioritising emotional impact over commercial appeal, though there's an undeniable dark magnetism to these songs that makes them oddly addictive.

The album's opening salvo, "Scisssssssors," sets the tone with its grinding electronics and Stewart's declaration that he wants to "cut everyone's throat." It's typical Xiu Xiu provocation, but there's method to the madness – the violence feels less like shock tactics and more like a desperate attempt to cut through the numbness of modern existence. "Pumpkin Attack On Mommy And Daddy" follows with its demented nursery rhyme logic, transforming childhood imagery into something genuinely unsettling.

The album's centrepiece, "Mary Turner Mary Turner," tackles the horrific 1918 lynching of its namesake with unflinching directness. Over 11 minutes of droning electronics and Stewart's increasingly desperate vocals, it's both the album's most difficult and most essential track – a confrontation with America's racist history that refuses to offer easy catharsis. It's the kind of song that only Xiu Xiu could make, transforming historical trauma into something approaching sacred music.

Elsewhere, "Ice Cream Truck" finds unexpected beauty in its music box melody and Stewart's tender vocals about childhood memory, while "Normal Love" strips things back to just piano and voice, creating space for some of the album's most affecting moments. These quieter interludes provide necessary breathing room between the more abrasive tracks, showing that Stewart understands the importance of dynamics in crafting an album-length journey.

The production, handled by Stewart alongside Angela Seo and Thor Harris, deserves special mention. Every sound feels deliberately placed, from the industrial percussion that sounds like machinery breaking down to the subtle electronic textures that creep around the edges of the mix. It's dense without being cluttered, harsh without being unlistenable – a delicate balance that allows the songs' emotional core to shine through the sonic assault.

Girl With Basket Of Fruit stands as both a summation of everything Xiu Xiu has been working towards and a bold leap into new territory. It's an album that demands attention and rewards patience, revealing new layers of meaning with each listen. In an era of playlist culture and shortened attention spans, Stewart has crafted something that insists on being experienced as a complete work – a 21st-century song cycle that captures the anxiety and alienation of our times while offering glimpses of transcendence.

This isn't music for everyone, nor is it meant to be. But for those willing to follow Stewart into his particular brand of beautiful darkness, Girl With Basket Of Fruit offers rewards that few albums can match. It confirms Xiu Xiu's position as one of the most vital and uncompromising voices in experimental music, still pushing boundaries two decades into their career.