Angela Seo und Jamie Stewart alias Xiu Xiu bringen Anfang März ihren neuen Longplayer “Ignore Grief” heraus, an dem der bereits auf früheren Aufnahmen beteiligte David Kendrick (Sparks, Devo, Gleaming Spires) mitwirkt. Im Begleittext wird das Album als “a record of halves” beschrieben, bei dem der Gesang quasi ganz dual zwischen den beiden aufgeteilt wird, auch ist von einer Dichotomie zwischen Realität und Imagination oder zwischen einflüssen aus Industrial und moderner klassischer Musik die Rede. Ausführlicher heißt es “The real songs attempt to turn the worst life has offered to five people the band is connected with into some kind of desperate shape that does something, anything, other than grind and brutalize their hearts and memory within these stunningly horrendous experiences. The imaginary songs are an expansion and abstract exploration of the early rock and roll “Teen Tragedy” genre as jumping off point to decontaminate the band’s own overwhelming emotions in knowing and living with what has happened to these five people. 
What none of this record does and despite the oft repeated assertion, what Xiu Xiu has never done, is attempt to superficially shock the listener. Instead, Xiu Xiu has spent twenty years grappling with how to process, to be empathetic towards, to disobey and to reorganize horror; there is no other word for it other than horror. The motivation for writing Ignore Grief to be about a child who was sold into prostitution by his mother, a junior high student who was kidnapped and murdered, incessantly choosing alcohol and cocaine over one’s family, becoming lost in the bleakest, darkest aspects of cultish spirituality and committing suicide as means to escape and protest a life of violent sex work is because the members of Xiu Xiu themselves are deeply shocked”. Das Album erscheint in allen gängigen Formaten bei Polyvinyl Records und enthält zusätzliche Lyrik in den physischen Editionen. Auf Bandcamp sind zudem zahlreiche weitere Artikel zum Album erhältlich.