Angel Guts: Red Classroom (album)

Lyrical themes

Angel Guts is Xiu Xiu's follow-up studio album to its 2012 Always. The title of the new album is based on the 1979 Japanese erotic film Angel Guts: Red Classroom. Its themes include "racialized sex, double suicides, double penetration, criminality, [and] fear of physical harm". Tiny Mix Tapes described the album preview as "the most Xiu Xiu album ever released", darker than its preceding albums, and "the sound of Xiu Xiu's death". Record label Bella Union compared the album's tone to that of Suicide, Einstürzende Neubauten, and Scott Walker.

Recording

The album was recorded at Nurse, the home studio of Jamie Stewart, and the Elmwood studio of producer John Congleton in Dallas, Texas. The instruments on the album are limited to analog drum machines, analog synthesizers, and a drum set.

Stewart's songwriting was influenced by his move from North Carolina to a crime-ridden area of Los Angeles, as well as the aforementioned erotic film. Stewart's home was near "a park divided among four gangs, a lake routinely dragged for bodies, [and] a building wherein two infant skeletons were recently uncovered".

The album's first single, "Stupid in the Dark", was released via Pitchfork on SoundCloud on November 20, 2013. The album was released on February 4, 2014 in the US via Polyvinyl Records and in the UK via Bella Union on CD, clear vinyl, limited-edition red vinyl, and as a digital download.

Music videos were made for "Stupid in the Dark," "Botanica de los Angeles," "Lawrence Liquors," "Bitter Melon," "El Naco," and "Black Dick." The latter two were premiered on non-music websites rather than YouTube ("El Naco" on a horror site and "Black Dick" on a porn site).