EP: Softcult – ‘Year Of The Snake’

Like the serpent that it’s named after, Year Of The Snake, the second EP from Canadian duo Softcult is a determined effort to shed the skin of past trauma, reject toxic behaviours and make space for healing.

Informed by their experiences of sexism and objectification as young women in the music industry, twin siblings Phoenix and Mercedes Arn Horn’s debut offering Year Of The Rat (2021) was a collection of bittersweet, grunge-infused sounds that soothed the sting of a painful past. On their follow up record Year Of The Snake, Softcult continue to dissect these difficult memories, but with a renewed focus on how they can use them as the foundations for true self autonomy.

A seething take down of the all-too-familiar excuse “Boys will be boys,” opener ‘BWBB’ sends a direct message to enablers of toxic “bro-code”. Heavily distorted riffs and crashing percussion drive home the message “Boys will be boys / but these boys are men / and these girls didn’t ask / to be touched by them.” It sits in powerful contrast to closing track ‘Uzumaki’, a heavy lament about the “vicious cycle” of PTSD caused by the behaviours the pair attack in ‘BWBB’.

Softcult’s hard earned emotional resilience shines through on ‘Spit It Out’ and ‘Gaslight’. The first is a brooding extrapolation on rejecting unconscious bias, whilst the second is an urgent, shadowy exploration of that “sinking feeling” of self doubt in an unbalanced relationship. On the more introspective ‘House Of Mirrors’, the pair channel their fears of falling short through swirling riffs and soft dual vocals, whilst ‘Perfect Blue’ is a melodic reflection on compromising your identity to please others.

Antagonistic and tender in equal measure, Softcult’s Year Of The Rat is a melodic reckoning, urging listeners to peel away the remnants of self-doubt, trust their instincts and to allow themselves the time and space to heal.

Listen to Sofcult’s new EP Year Of The Rat here

Follow Softcult on bandcamp, Spotify, Instagram, Facebook & Twitter

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

 

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ALBUM: Cate Le Bon – ‘Pompeii’

You awake, eyes wild, dreams of Pompeii still flashing through your mind. It’s dark outside, what time is it? A rhythm shuffles over the horizon, an unidentified pulse of percussion and a shambling couple of wind instruments. Pompeii, Cate Le Bon’s sixth album, has begun, with ‘Dirt on the Bed’.

Yet again, she has created a remarkable, singular work. Pompeii is continuously rewarding, an album to return to again and again until it swallows you into its world. Like its artwork, a version of the Tim Presley painting that served as the central inspiration for the entire project, it possesses an aged, grainy feel in spite of its fresh originality. The sound is science fiction. As if from a parallel 80s, it is drenched in synths while evading the worn conventions of synth pop, instead assimilating those sounds into the Cate Le Bon style.

The brilliant ‘French Boys’ is punctuated by a beautiful steel pan hook that is mechanical and melancholy, creaking with the sad nostalgia of an abandoned oil rig in some post-apocalyptic landscape. Later tunes like the momentous ‘Cry Me Old Trouble’ develop walls of synths that provide epic and strange backdrops to the lyrics, complementing their tone perfectly.

Le Bon’s writing builds on the vocabulary of the ancient and the spiritual which she introduced to her work on her previous album, Reward. It constitutes perhaps the best example to date of her ability to create affecting lyrics out of abstract emotive language. Lines like “cry me old trouble”, “my heart broke a century”, “raise a glass in a season of ash and pour it over me”, they have that Symbolist combination of familiarity and mystery. Like a dream, her writing makes some unconscious sense even when individual elements evade comprehension.

Recent Cate Le Bon albums have felt terrestrial in their experimentation, each album conveying a kind of landscape. Crab Day was shingly, coastal, Reward was mountainous and sublime. By comparison, this album feels like it takes place on a swampy exoplanet, with thicker air and a slightly stronger gravitational force. In other words, Cate Le Bon has broken loose from Earth and is operating from a world of her own, free from any obvious external reference point and working according only to her original logic.

The closer, ‘Wheel’, provides a cyclical end to the album, an approximate reprise of ‘Dirt on the Bed’ with a palette expanded on the basis of all that we’ve gained through the 9-song track list. Only Le Bon can bound this sound-world, can make sense of it and condense it into an ordered and beautiful album. She is yet to make a bad record, and this might well be her finest work yet.

Order your copy of Cate Le Bon’s new album Pompeii here (released 4th February)

Follow Cate Le Bon on bandcamp, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram & Facebook

Photo Credit: Cate Le Bon

Lloyd Bolton
@franklloydwleft
@lloyd_bolton

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Track Of The Day: Tanya Tagaq – ‘Colonizer’

A powerful statement against centuries of colonisation aimed directly at the perpetrators, Canadian avant-garde artist Tanya Tagaq has shared her latest single ‘Colonizer’. Taken from her recent album Tongues, on which she explored themes of social and political exploitation with distinctive flair, the track is a commanding, brutal listen that reduces five hundred years of colonising history into four words: “Oh. You’re. Guilty. Colonizer.”

An award-winning improvisational singer, composer and best-selling author from Ikaluktutiak, Tagaq’s work has been recognised by the Order of Canada, Polaris Music Prize and the JUNO Awards. Described as “an original disruptor,” she confronts the horrors of inequality on a global and personal scale, seeking to erode the foundations of unjust systems through her pulverizing soundscapes, elastic vocals and spoken word. Her latest track ‘Colonizer’ epitomises these talents. Punctuated by Tagaq’s gasps for breath and the lyrical mantra “Oh. You’re. Guilty. Colonizer,” it ripples with righteous anger and defiance.

“Everyone is responsible for the system that is in place right now; those who benefit from the genocide of Indigenous people are still guilty,” Tagaq told The Line of Best Fit in a recent interview. She’s enhanced her message further in the potent accompanying video for ‘Colonizer’. Directed by Leah Fay Goldstein and Peter Dreimanis, the footage shows the destruction of the symbols and the perpetrators of the residential school system. You can donate to the Indian Residential School Survivors Society featured in the visuals here.

Watch the video for ‘Colonizer’ below.

Follow Tanya Tagaq on bandcamp, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram & Facebook

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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WATCH: Wet Leg – ‘Oh No’

A playful take on the relatable desire to doom-scroll on social media when you find yourself alone with your thoughts, Isle Of Wight duo Wet Leg have shared a new video for their latest single ‘Oh No’. Taken from their upcoming self-titled debut album, which is set for release on 8th April via Domino Records, the video gives fans an opportunity to sing-along to the catchy lyrics as the duo dance around in a uniquely Wet Leg costume.

Formed by Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers, Wet Leg began making music together in the summer of 2019 and in the space of two short years, the pair have garnered a loyal and excited following. Their refreshingly laid back attitude, dead-pan humourous lyrics and memorable guitar licks provide their listeners with instant gratification and new single ‘Oh No’ is no exception. The accompanying video, like all Wet Leg videos, was self-directed by the band.

“The footage was shot on the Isle of Wight at the bottom of a chairlift that you can take from the top of the cliff,” Teasdale explains. “The rope costume – made by costume designer Kate Tabor – weighed an absolute tonne and it took three of us to carry it down the cliff to shoot. We’d each grab onto a limb, and after 20 minutes of heavy lifting managed to get it down the steep steps leading to the beach. We’re thinking of starting it up as a work-out class for alternative types.”

“It’s been a pretty wild ride for us these past few months, we never really thought much past actually making music and playing gigs,” Teasdale continues. “It’s quite an odd thing to suddenly open yourself to so much criticism and praise alike. The comments that complete strangers will leave on our videos are so funny and range wildly in sentiment. Although we know it is bad for us to read them and we try to avoid it, sometimes it’s irresistible when you’re on your own; the 3am doom scroll really gets you. For this video, we have obsessively selected our favourite bits from the comments sections across our socials, the good, the bad, the ugly and have repurposed them to make something new – it has been quite cathartic actually.”

Watch the video for ‘Oh No’ below.

Wet Leg UK 2022 In Store Tour Dates
Thursday 7th April – Banquet @ PRYZM
Friday 8th April – Rough Trade East
Saturday 9th April – Resident, Brighton
Sunday 10th April – Rough Trade, Bristol
Monday 11th April – Rough Trade, Nottingham
Tuesday 12th April – HMV, Birmingham

Follow Wet Leg on bandcamp, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram & Facebook

Photo Credit: Hollie Fernando

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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