Sharon Van Etten Joins Xiu Xiu In New Music Video For “Sad Mezcalita”

From Xiu Xiu came a new music video for “Sad Mezcalita,” which is part of their release of new LP OH NO that the group dropped today.  The project contains tracks of duets and was announced in January along with the release of their single “A Bottle Of Rum,” which was followed by the release of their single and music video for “Rumpus Room” earlier this month.

Xiu Xiu’s new video features the vocals of Sharon Van Etten and begins with shaky cam shots in black and white of grainy, eerie images. Spotlights light up a figure in the dark as the deep simple vocals become surrounded with a washing pad effect, laced with images of people at night in city settings. The sound tidies up with the introduction of the lovely and raw vocals of Jamie Stewart as the newly formed duet sings, “It’s not having something evil endure as it is never having something good. The only years that meant a thing. Bewildered every and all days. The flip of two ugly, useless, purposeless cards. Guide me to walk o’er the dune to dig up your Rumpus Room.”

Among the ethereal narratives shown in the video are an injured woman grasping tulle and a hatchet, a woman moving slowly into poses, and a man in a suit in the city, all alluding to the song’s theme of the anxieties associated with having a lover who meets a terrible end. The video ends mysteriously with a hand digging in the sand. Overall, Xiu Xiu’s single beautifully ebbs and flows with a balance of enveloping soundscapes followed by subtle, simplistic vocals, creating a dramatic effect when paired with the slightly unsettling and artful videography of “Sad Mecalita.”

Stewart shared about the new release, “Angela said to me, ‘you never write love songs.’ This song tried to do that and failed. To me, it became about how the fear of someone you love being killed or kidnapped or lost in the desert leads to a possessed certainty of those very fates. Wanting and needing and actually feeling love for someone when you know all along that it will end in the worst way imaginable.”

Van Etten has kicked 2021 off with a busy schedule already, sharing her previously unreleased track “On Your Way” in February after her January release of cover of The Beach Boys’ “In My Room.”