EP: Emily Magpie – ‘She’

Following her alluring 2020 debut LP, Let’s Talk About the Weather, and last year’s ethereal extended play, When the Space Between Was so Much Less, Bristol based songwriter and producer Emily Magpie steps into the water for her deeply personal new EP, She. Filled with soothing alt-pop melodies shimmering on the surface, it offers a poignant reflection on her own experience being a woman,“which is beautiful and messy!”

Opening with ‘She Said’, Emily, in celebration of her best friends, sings in lush vocal harmony with the most important women in her life; the subtle elegance of sun-drenched guitar evoking summer warmth and better days. Below the surface of the water, haunting lyrical hypnosis from ‘Down in the Deep‘ submerges the listener in raw emotion – a delicate, yet complex, dream-pop soundscape of synth, guitar, and piano, elevating Emily’s mesmerising multi-layered vocals. “My salt bathing lungs / The lines on their tongues / Is that what you sold to me? / Half spun cigarettes / Can’t work with less / The wheel still spins the same.”

Imagining herself “drifting around the bottom of the sea,” Emily explores the feminine – “which exists outside of gender” – encapsulating the light and dark. Closing with ‘Blistered Tongue’, Emily finds herself beyond the aphotic zone; ghostly reflections shimmering to the percussive groove and brooding synth-driven melody. Don’t be afraid! Through atmospheric arrangement, Emily embraces both the sparkling beauty and the melancholic unknown of the feminine, as Kieran Ball and Max Harrison provide additional instrumentation, swirling in Emily Magpie’s effervescent electronic mix. “Feminine energy is badass and there’s a massive history of it being suppressed which it’s important to challenge by us being heard.”


She, the new EP from Emily Magpie, is out now via  Def Pressé. Buy on bandcamp now.

Ken Wynne
@Ken_Wynne

Photo Credit: Hannah Lisa

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ALBUM: Dream Wife – ‘Social Lubrication’

“Music isn’t the cure, it’s the remedy.”

Following their 2018 self-titled debut LP, and 2020’s sophomore record, So When You Gonna…, London-based trio Dream Wife – consisting of Rakel Mjöll on lead vocals, Alice Go on guitar/backing vocals, and Bella Podpadec on bass/backing vocals – are set to release their highly anticipated, riotous third record, Social Lubrication on 9th June via Lucky Number; a collection of playful, political punk with a lust for life. Entirely self-written and self-produced by Dream Wife and mixed by legendary duo Alan Moulder (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Killers, Depeche Mode) and Caesar Edmunds (Wet Leg, Beach House), Social Lubrication perfectly channels their live wire intensity into ten tracks of raw truth.

Opening with riot grrrl moxie, the infectious Bella bassline of ‘Kick in the Teeth’ (“I spent so much of this youth questioning my value / Lolita’s all grown up now, who knew?”) is followed by the scuzzy Alice Go Go Go riffs of ‘Who Do You Wanna Be?’. Rakel’s rebellious attitude screaming for increased collective action – away from soul-destroying “social media activism without action” – and decreased hyper-individualism. “Exhausted by the pressure to feel somewhat empowered / It’s only 8AM, and I haven’t even showered / Guess perseverance is the boldest thing one can do.”

‘Hot (Don’t Date a Musician)’ evokes the playfulness of CSS and the rock and roll grit of Motörhead. “Don’t date a musician / They’ll think your competition / I was never competition / I was just… hot” Rakel states, her on-the-nose humour backed up by a refusal to be reduced or intimated for being a woman who makes music. Title track’Social Lubrication’ flows in a similar vein, as the trio, exhausted, refuse to pander to patriarchal bullshit. Rakel delivers her spoken word verses with urgency across distorted garage guitar: “What’s it like to be a woman in music, dear? / You’d never ask me that if you regarded me as your peer.”

‘Mascara’ is a love letter to the mundane – but no less important – moments of life, and provides brief respite before Dream Wife are out for blood with ‘Leech’. Screaming for empathy and calling out double standards through frenetic fuzz (“Fuck those who call themselves a friend, but they don’t lift a finger! / Fuck that WhatsApp group where they got points for nailing a fresh-faced singer!”) before crescendo-ing into cathartic feedback. (“Nobody really wins in a patriarchal society. We all lose.”)

‘I Want You’ and ‘Curious’ leave us lusting over Social Lubrication. the first is a filthy Be Your Own Pet-esque punk rocker, and the second is a hot bisexual/polyamorous anthem (“She loves you but she is curious about her love for me… / You’ll all be middle-aged men one day / And I’ll be a middle-aged Dream Wife”). Nostalgic for the early noughties, Dream Wife enter the stratosphere with the New Pony Club/Yeah Yeah Yeahs-inspired ‘Orbit’, closing Social Lubrication with a pulse-racing, disco-punk groove. It’s an unapologetic record that speaks to “systemic problems that cannot be glossed over by lube,” and that’s something we fully endorse at Get In Her Ears.

Pre-order your copy of Dream Wife’s new album Social Lubrication here

Follow Dream Wife on bandcamp, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram & Facebook

Ken Wynne
@Ken_Wynne

Photo Credit: Sophie Webster

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EP: Tokky Horror – ‘KAPPACORE’

Thank fuck for attitude! Emerging from the pit to release KAPPACORE, hardcore punk/techno collective Tokky Horror have recorded a visceral collection of mosh-inducing dance melodies; an infectious melding of distorted breakbeat chaos and abrasive guitar filth – from Zee Divine, Ava Akira and Mollie Rush – to piss off the punk purists!

Following their 2021 extended play from Alcopop! Records, I Found the Answers and Now I Want More – later incorporated into their compilation of off-kilter DIY noise, Home Recordings 2020-2021 – KAPPACORE is their latest mutation; a hyper-intense techno-punk record for misfits. Opening with ‘MAXINE’, featuring Blazer Boccle, Zee’s (formerly of Liverpudlian queer punks Queen Zee) (witch)craft results in hypnotic drum & bass; Blazer, Ava and Mollie’s pseudo-rapping buried in the mix, scrambling from a shallow grave for your attention, making your heart skip, skip a beat! “We are the weirdos, mister.”

Now primed to explode, ‘HAMMER 2 THE FACE’ follows, creating punkish energy through Aphex Twin-esque idiosyncratic techno; Tokky Horror’s do-it-yourself ethos resulting in grinding industrial guitar riffs layered with Zee’s experimental hardcore production. Let the bass hit you like a hammer to the face! Preserving this chaotic energy, ‘JAZZ MUSIC’ is a textural electrical assault to the senses, with only woodwind instrumentation providing brief respite from Tokky Horror’s groove. “I love jazz music / You love jazz music / I love jazz music / Tokky Horror crew!”

‘TOILET’, another rave-inducing headbanger, is the crew’s “heartbreak song about falling out of love with a scene.” Punk is supposed to represent anarchy! It should be the perfect petri dish for activism; punk rock’s lyrical vitriol expressing an intense desire for sociopolitical change. Unfortunately, most “punks” were too wasted to protest… So, back in the lab, the mad scientists at Tokky Horror are working towards creating their own sub-culture; one of inclusivity, and ‘TOILET’ is their melancholic dance punk anthem! “We are all searching for change…”

Closing out KAPPACORE with pulsating basslines and distorted vocals comes ‘TRANMERE RAVER’, featuring MC NULTi. The Tokky Horror crew crescendoing into a cataclysm of crusty electronic crud. From the breakbeats of Orbital to the electropunk of The Prodigy, Tokky Horror proudly wear their influences on their Kappa branded sleeves. This is the Tokky Horror Show: hypnotic anarchic catharsis!

Tokky Horror UK Live Dates 2023
18th May – KAPPACORE EP Release Party Blondies, London
26th May – Sneister Festival, The Hague NL
9th June – Fiestas De La Artes, Manchester
5th August – Rebellion Festival, Blackpool
18th August – Convoy Cabaret Festival, Dorchester
19th August – Arctangent Festival, Somerset
9th September – Burn It Down Festival, Devon

Follow Tokky Horror on bandcamp, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram & Facebook

Ken Wynne
@Ken_Wynne

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WATCH: Alex Lahey – ‘They Wouldn’t Let Me In’

Following the release of lead single ‘Good Time’, the infectious ‘They Wouldn’t Let Me In’ is the latest single from Australian artist Alex Lahey‘s upcoming third album and debut for Liberation, The Answer Is Always Yes; a reflective post-punk track inspired by the isolation she experienced during her teenage years. “I spent a lot of time thinking about my own experiences growing up as a queer teenager…being excluded from conventional romantic rites of passage…feeling like I couldn’t relate to anyone around me.”

Finding inspiration after watching the coming-of-age TV romantic comedy-drama ‘Heartstopper’ (adapted from the webcomic of the same name by Alice Oseman), Alex put into words those tough moments many queer teens experience as they try to adapt to a seemingly non-inclusive world: “I couldn’t get into the bar or the church / Or the backseat of your mother’s car / The club or the bus or the band where no one plays guitar / The dance at your school / Or the change rooms at the swimming pool / The haunted house down the street / That all those people died in…”

Venturing into a furniture store for the accompanying music video – co-directed with Claire Giuffre – Alex Lahey furnishes us (literally!) with a multitude of emotions. Through self-discovery, co-writing alongside Chris Collins, she revels in the absurdity through propulsive rhythm and cathartic honesty; finding comfort in discomfort.

“Living in a world that wasn’t made for you makes you pretty strong and adaptive… It also makes you realise how absurd everything is. With this record, I wanted to get weird because the world is weird, and it’s even weirder when you realise you don’t fit into it all the time.”

“They wouldn’t let me in / C’mon just let me in / Why don’t you just fucking let me in?”

The Answer Is Always Yes, the upcoming album from Alex Lahey, is set for release on 19th May via Liberation.

Ken Wynne
@ken_wynne

Photo Credit: Pooneh Ghana

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