By Christine Werthman

Xiu Xiu might challenge listeners with its dark electronic twists and angular melodies, but it also dares to test fans on a new front: pronunciation. The most creative interpretation of the band’s name came from loiterers in front of a venue in St. Augustine, Fla. “These football asshole guys called us ‘Shwee Shwee,’” says frontman Jamie Stewart. “We really liked that one.”

Xiu Xiu (pronounced “Shoo Shoo”) formed in San Jose, Calif., in 2000 and took its name from the Chinese film Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl. The film tells the story of a young woman in China who is relocated to a labor camp and makes a series of bad decisions that leaves her life in ruin. Stewart once called it the saddest movie he’d ever seen, which makes the name quite befitting for a band that plays some of the saddest music you’ll ever hear. 

“It’s not that we’re trying to write about sad things,” Stewart says. “Good things get written about, too.”

Stewart is a master of making art out of sorrow—whether he likes it or not. From the very first track on Xiu Xiu’s latest album, The Air Force, Stewart weaves soft piano and his trembling vocal together with abrupt drum crashes and jagged electronic edges. His lyrics read like free-form poetry on “The Pineapple vs. the Watermelon”: “Can I pray for your return?/The bird I am looking for is not in me/It is in you.” They reflect painful admiration on “Buzz Saw”: “Your black hair is like black hair/Mine I promise is a jerk’s hair/Your acne is like a pearl/Mine I swear is a brimstone.”

As the last founding and consistent member of the band, Stewart has done an incredible job defining Xiu Xiu’s sound, and this time around he’s accompanied by Caralee McElroy (vocals and flute) and Ches Smith (percussion). McElroy, Stewart’s cousin, contributed an original gem of her own to The Air Force called “Hello From Eau Claire.” McElroy sings, “I know it’s stupid to dream/That you might think of me as a man” before launching into a can-do list that includes: “I can buy my own cigarettes/I can pluck my own mustache.” These are the types of lyrics that MFA students would shred in a poetry workshop (and never quite allow them any substantive meaning), but here, with a startlingly playful backing track and childlike vocals, they somehow ascend beyond simplistic declarations to become Xiu Xiu’s version of a satisfying pop song. 

Oct. 13. Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St. (betw. Bowery & Chrystie St.), 212-533-2111; 8, $16/$18. (Also Oct. 12. at Mercury Lounge.)