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Xiu Xiu, "Nina"
When I learned of this album, it seemed like a dream come true, as I love both Nina Simone and past Xiu Xiu covers (especially "Ceremony").  Consequently, it seemed like an entire album of Jamie Stewart interpreting Nina's songs could be amazing...if I did not think too much about it.  As it turns out, it is not amazing.  It is an interesting experiment with occasionally impressive results though: Nina sounds like Jamie Stewart making an art-damaged, wildly melodramatic cabaret album with some free-jazz elements thrown in.  That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does not bear much resemblance to either Nina Simone or classic Xiu Xiu.
While it has been several years since I have considered myself a serious Xiu Xiu fan, a project like this highlights what made me one in the first place: Jamie Stewart has always been an unpredictable and gutsy artist with great taste in influences.  Unfortunately, tackling a full album of Nina Simone songs is a fundamentally doomed endeavor, particularly when married with Stewart's current aesthetic vision.  For one, Simone's songs were great largely because she was the one singing them–not many other singers can approach her sexiness, soulfulness, intensity, or style.  The "intensity" part is not a problem for Jamie, obviously, but his hushed, quavering voice turns Nina's songs into something somewhat grotesque and Lynchian.  Equally importantly, Xiu Xiu's best work was spectacular because Stewart combined great hooks with unconventional twists and a constant sense that things were on the verge of barreling completely out of control.  On Nina, he seems intent on burying the hooks and melodies and compensating by making the surrounding music just sound a little "wrong" or "off."
Still another hurdle is that Nina is essentially a showcase for Jamie Stewart's trembling, anguished vocals and I always liked Xiu Xiu in spite of his singing rather than because of it.  While Jamie surrounded himself with an eclectic and game batch of collaborators for this project (most notably guitarist Mary Halvorson), most of these songs are very much in the "torch song" vein, so the accompaniment is generally very minimal and jazzy.  Which is a shame, because Stewart's ensemble kicks up quite a wonderful cacophony when they finally get a chance on "You'd Be So Nice" (the album's "single").  For most of the other songs, Stewart tends to be accompanied by little more than languid saxophone and some strummed jazz chords.  There are some occasional bits of guitar or sax dissonance, which are nice, but otherwise the bulk of Nina could be considered surprisingly straightforward were it not for Stewart's quivering, on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown vocals.
One final problem that I have is that most of Nina's songs were not written by Nina Simone: they were merely popularized by her.  Consequently, Stewart is basically doing radical re-interpretations of Nina's own wildly different interpretations of songs by Cole Porter, Kurt Weill, Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee, and others.  That situation is perversely exacerbated by the two Simone originals that Stewart did choose to cover: "Four Women" and "Flo Me La," as both are bizarre, highly questionably forays into cultural appropropriation.  "Flo Me La," for example, is based upon a traditional African warrior marching chant.  "Four Women," on the other hand, features Stewart singing lines such as "my skin is black" and "whose little girl am I?," which I found quite cringe-worthy coming from a white male.  Fortunately, Stewart did have the tact to avoid the line "my parents were slaves" and the clattering, lurching free-jazz accompaniment is one of the album's best moments.
All of that adds up to quite a flawed, perplexing album, but not one that I would consider a complete failure by any means.  After all, "You'd Be So Nice" is spectacular.  A whole album of this stuff is definitely numbing though.  While I have seen Nina pilloried as one of the worst albums of the year elsewhere, I found it to be just an exasperating, overlong execution of a potentially great idea (and I would much rather see Jamie gamble and fall flat than re-tread familiar territory).  If Steward had chosen some more fun songs ("Do I Move You?," for example), thought up some livelier and more adventurous arrangements, and stripped away all the more middling material, this could have been a stellar EP.  In its current state, Nina kind of resembles the work of a bumbling alchemist who transmutes gold into copper: it's definitely an interesting feat and the end result still has value, but it probably would have been better if he had just left the material alone instead.
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