LISTEN: GIHE on Soho Radio with Cheri Percy (29.05.23)

Tash and Kate were back on Soho Radio’s airwaves playing loads of new music from some of their favourite female, non-binary and LGBTQIA+ artists! Mari offered some of her “musical musings” too. The pair talked about their highlights from The Great Escape Festival – which included spotting Courtney Love – and how much they collectively love Hypsoline after they headlined the latest GIHE gig at The Shacklewell Arms. They also enthused about the eclectic mix of tracks on the playlist, including ARXX, Ezra Williams, Touch Excellent, HotWax, GENN, SPIDER, CATBEAR, DEWEY, Midwife, Brutus and more.

Tash also caught up with author and journalist Cheri Percy to talk about her new book Come Away With ESG. Inspired by the story of ESG – one of the most under-rated and influential bands in electronic music – Cheri penned the book which features interviews with founding member Renee Scroggins, alongside cult-figures from 1980s New York and North England. Tash and Cheri spoke about all this and more. You can buy your copy of the book here.

Listen back to the radio show below:

 

We’ll be back on Soho Radio on Monday 26th June from 12-2pm!

Tracklist
ANOHNI and the Johnsons – It Must Change
Hypsoline – With You Gone
ARXX – Ride Or Die
HotWax – Rip It Out
GENN – A Reprise (That Girl)
INDIGOS – Drug Dealer, Faith Healer
FLOSSING – Switch
SOLE – en och en
Headboy – cement
Heff Vansaint – Ladder Rungs
BRUTUS – Brave
My Ugly Clementine – Are You In?
Aldous Harding – The Barrel
Ezra Williams – Until I’m Home
Janelle Monae – Lipstick Lover
jellyskin – bringer of brine
**Interview with Cheri Percy**
ESG – The Beat
DEWEY – The Janitor
CATBEAR – I’ll Meet You At The End
Midwife & Vyva Melinkolya – Hounds Of Heaven
Charlotte Carpenter – Spinning Plates
Carpenters – Yesterday Once More
SPIDER – Growing Into It
Touch Excellent – Record
pink suits – Fake Great Britain
Hole – Awful

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INTERVIEW: HotWax

When I caught up with HotWax before their headline gig at The Lexington in April, bassist Lola Sam and vocalist & guitarist Tallulah Sim-Savage both revealed that ‘Rip It Out’ was their favourite track from their upcoming debut EP, A Thousand Times. Today (17th May), the Hastings band have shared their visceral new anthem about contraception, accompanied by a riotous video shot at The Green Door Store in Brighton.

Having just returned from the seaside city after performing multiple shows at The Great Escape Festival, the trio – completed by knockout drummer Alfie Sayers – have been garnering a loyal following on their local live scenes of Hastings and Brighton over the past few years. They have a busy festival season ahead of them, which includes slots at Mad Cool in Madrid and Visions Festival in Hackney, as well as sharing a bill with The Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs at All Points East Festival in August. This might seem like an intimidating schedule, but the three teenagers are taking things in their stride.

“We did our first ever mini tour recently, just to get a taste of it,” Tallulah tells me. “We’ve been gigging for years, but we’ve never gone away and played more than three gigs in a row. It was really nice spending time travelling together and bonding. Playing live is our favourite thing ever. I never feel happier than when I’m playing live. We’re just really enjoying everything, it’s so much fun.”

Tallulah and Lola have known each other for years and have the unshakable bond that comes from surviving school together. Tallulah explains that the pair played in a band called The Kids when they were fifteen years old. “I played guitar, Lola played bass and we had a singer and another drummer. When that band ended, we formed HotWax and I decided to sing. I would never sing usually, but I thought ‘I’m just gonna do it’, because we got on really well and we didn’t really have another friend at school to invite into the band.” She laughs at that last part, and I do to. It’s hard to believe that the pair struggled to find friends to play along with them, as they both seem modest, but truly passionate about being in a band making music together.

Drummer Alfie can’t remember a time when he wasn’t playing drums. It seems like an act of serendipity that he met Lola and Tallulah, completing the HotWax line-up. Together, they create the type of guitar music that other bands take years to master. Their sound is raw, but self assured, visceral yet melodic. Each time I’ve seen them play, I’ve felt an overwhelming rush of joy, because I know I’m witnessing something truly special. But maybe I’m just projecting and being sentimental? I wish I’d been in a band like theirs when I was eighteen.

So what influenced HotWax’s sound? Lola says she remembers listening to CDs in the car with her Mum – “stuff like The Beatles, Amy Winehouse and Destiny’s Child” – before she discovered rock music in her early teens. For Tallulah, it began with a love of Lady Gaga, before her Mum played Blondie’s Parallel Lines album at a family party, and she became totally obsessed with it. “I was listening to that album for a whole month,” she smiles. “I remember feeling kind of guilty about it in a way, that rock music was ‘bad’ – I don’t know why? I was quite an anxious child. I was like, ‘Oh, this feels really bad, but it’s really good!’. That’s probably when I got into heavier music and was inspired to play electric guitar, rather than acoustic.”

Through these eclectic influences and an endearing rebellious streak, Lola and Tallulah wrote the eponymous track from their upcoming debut EP, A Thousand Times. “The reason why we called the song and the EP ‘A Thousand Times’ is because Lola and I have gone through complicated relationships together, but it’s also about being just everything to each other,” Tallulah explains. “It’s sort of like we’ve had this argument a thousand times. It’s all about growing up and the things that come with that. Dramas, arguments, heartbreaks, everything. It’s celebrating us growing older and still being friends.”

The track is now a staple in the band’s live shows, but it took a while for it to sound the way that it does now. “It took us ages to record it,” Lola explains. “We didn’t record it until Alfie was in the band. The music video for it is made up of clips from then until now. So it’s like this photography project. With the song and this EP, it has been a collective effort from us and our producer as well. I’m really happy with it. I think that we went into it with the view of ‘this is what it sounds like now, live’, then we when you go into studio, you have more options of where the song can go and it can end up sounding different, but in a good way.” The band worked alongside Kid Kapichi’s Ben Beetham to bring their record to life. “He’s a great producer, he was so enthusiastic,” Alfie adds.

With their debut EP released in just a few days (May 19th), some stellar live shows lined up, and their recent signing to Transgressive Records, I ask how the band are feeling about these impressive feats. Tallulah is quick to respond: “It’s weird. It’s all I’ve ever wanted and I’m so happy, but everything’s happened so quickly. It’s kind of hard to process it and not to feel the pressure a bit. We’re writing our second EP and it’s like ‘Oh, people are actually going to hear these songs now,’ it’s a weird shift from just being a small town band. Yeah, it’s quite overwhelming sometimes.”

“It’s not just us that we have to impress anymore,” Lola adds. I caveat that with the fact that people seem to already be deeply impressed by what they do, which they smile at. We close our conversation with some recommendations on what to listen to. They all chime in enthusiastically, especially Alfie: “There’s a band called Lime Garden who we really like, they’re from Brighton. Kid Kapichi are really great. We’re good friends with a band called Mindframe, they’re really cool. Our local music scenes are great. We also love a band called Congratulations and Honey Badger too!”

Watch the video for ‘Rip It Out’ below.

HotWax Live Dates 2023
17th May – Brighton, The Prince Albert (Pearl Harts tour)
18th May – Portsmouth, The Edge of the Wedge (Pearl Harts tour)
19th May – Bristol, The Lanes (Pearl Harts tour)
20th May – Hastings, Printworks (support from Snayx and Borough Council DJ set)
1st June – Manchester, 33 Oldham St (Alien Chicks support)
2nd July – Newport, Rebel Fest
7th July – Madrid, Mad Cool Festival
22nd July – Hackney, Visions Festival
25th August – London, All Points East Festival
9th September – Torquay, Burn It Down Festival

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

Photo Credit: Holly Whitaker

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

 

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WATCH: Taraka – ‘PSYCHOCASTLE’

Set to release her first solo album in October, former Prince Rama front-woman Taraka has now shared the advance single from her debut. ‘Psychocastle‘ was released last week and, if it’s any indication of things to come, the upcoming album – Welcome to Paradise Lost – promises a grunge laden, visceral departure from the psych-dance stylings of Prince Rama.

Welcome to Paradise Lost was conceived by Taraka whilst she was attempting a return to a pre-internet Eden by living in solitary confinement in a hot Texas gallery with a live serpent. ‘Psychocastle’ certainly sounds like someone struggling with their own company in an overheated space. Lyrics swing from love to hate in the same breath, moaning guitar hooks wail over a distorted vocal. The overall effect is deliciously uncomfortable, a sort of Courtney Love/Hole for the post-pandemic generation – those same grunge sensibilities, but with less earwig chorus hooks and more sprinkles of inertia, confusion, distress and stasis.

An accompanying music video (directed by Matthew Hoffman and Taraka and shot on 8mm) juxtaposes brutalist tumbledown city apartment blocks with salubrious, bucolic scenery. Taraka is pictured against both landscapes predominantly attached to a bed that she seems doomed to take everywhere with her. The aesthetics hark back to the old saying “you made your, bed you lie in it” (used memorably by Love as part of ‘Miss World’), and perhaps allude to feminist politics – in particular Emma Sulkowicz’ performance art piece ‘Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight)’. Taraka plays with ideas of reality and escape with a colourful, quirky charisma as she is filmed in a leotard depicting internal organs, muscles and skeletal structure whilst a bloodied tampon swings joyfully between her legs – a powerfully arresting image. 

To quote from the artist directly: “Ever try to consult your inner self, but inside your skin is merely a rotting corpse? Ever feel like every path you take is just another mobius strip leading you back to where you first began? Congratulations, welcome to the Psychocastle.”

‘Psychocastle’ is out now, and is taken from Taraka’s debut album Welcome to Paradise Lost – due out 8th October via her label Rage Peace.

Kate Sullivan
@katesullo

Photo Credit: Matthew Hoffman

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ALBUM: Girl Friday – ‘Androgynous Mary’

Hardly Art are hardly novices at breaking new bands – the label gave early releases to the likes of Tacocat, La Luz, Shannon & The Clams and Colleen Green, amongst many others – but for LA four-piece Girl Friday, this debut album release on the label reflects a massive step forward for a band after just two EPs, which were self-released. But equally, for a group with this diversity of influence, and this originality of expression, perhaps it’s not so surprising that they’re hosting the band’s new album Androgynous Mary. 

The group came together via a chance encounter when guitarist Vera met bassist Libby at a friend’s house, at UCLA. Impressed by Libby’s particular style of playing bass – the Peter Hook merged with Kim Deal style of which certainly informs the ten tracks on Androgynous Mary. Vera introduced herself and the pair began making music together, bringing in additional guitarist Sierra and drummer Virginia through friends of friends.

What really marks the group out is their refusal to pigeon-hole themselves, generically, with this LP displaying flashes of surf-rock, garage, post-punk, goth, art-rock and pop-punk. And, although the foursome certainly have a broadly feminist identity, this is no mere political screed. Rather, it’s a collage of sounds and ideas from their time together, as informed by “parking lot murals” as the SCUM Manifesto, in a way not dissimilar to Girl Friday’s  hero, Courtney Love.

Album opener, ‘This Is Not the Indie Rock I Signed Up For’, is a case-in-point. It’s initially a gentle lead-in that shows off Girl Friday’s gorgeous vocal harmonies and soaring guitar lines, all contained in a mid-tempo post-punk ballad. But, in perhaps a meta callback to its title, the song falls apart into a free-form breakdown a few minutes in, before returning to its original style.

Second track and the album’s lead single, ‘Amber’s Knees: A Matter of Concern’ is built around a choppy, spikey slice of lo-fi indie-punk guitar.  Described by the group as a consideration of “the borders of culturally sanctioned dissociation and the wilful ignorance we often employ to keep things functioning”, its juxtaposition of post-punk and lyrical density gives it a substantial atmosphere that belies the accessibility of its sound. This is also true to some extent with ‘Eaten Things’, which veers more towards a gloomy, grunge sludge bass-led sound, and thumping percussion – “I want to eat you up” goes its chorus, before a grim sounding middle eight that sounds epically gothic.  

Lyrically, ‘Public Bodies’ is a return to the observational nature of the first two tracks, whilst sonically shifting the album into Allo Darlin’ style melancholic indie-pop. Musing on mainstream rejection, isolation and the inaccessibility of healthcare in the USA (that’s one interpretation), it uses images of religion and bodies consumed by capitalist machinery, stating “…if you want your independence, then you trade your health for cash”. The song closes with a Goo-era Sonic Youth style coda, underlining the band’s ability to re-construct their songs, seemingly on the spur of the moment, like an act of collective will. This is also true of what follows in ‘What We Do It For’ – opening with 90 seconds of post-punk instrumental led by spectral guitars (not far from the early days of Interpol), leading to a middle section of balladic harmonies, and closing with a flurry of guitars and drums; it’s like three different songs beautifully crashing into each other.  

‘Earthquake’ is a more immediate, Runaways style garage banger, replete with a shouty chorus which, somewhat appropriately, leads to an emotional shift in the album. ‘Clotting’ contains soft vocalisations and more personally emotive lyrics, not dissimilar to Sleater Kinney’s quieter work, whilst ‘Gold Stars’ is a mid-tempo grunge tale of an unwanted relationship (“I said leave, but you heard love”), underscored by Libby’s bass melodies. 

Closers ‘Favourite Friend’ and ‘I Hope Jason Is Happy’ form a dovetailing pair, sharing a stadium-filling guitar line that shines throughout both – “My head doesn’t fit the crown, does it matter anymore?” opens the lyrics on the mournful former, and the track slowly grows in intensity, dropping away to leave only the sustained guitar lead-in to the LP’s closer. Over a marching drum beat and fuzzy guitars, Girl Friday’s four members sing “My head is on your chest / In the end I’ll be happy if you do your best / You’ve got to fight to keep your breath in this world” and, with that, it finishes.

Precocious, without being naïve, and intelligent, without being pretentious, Girl Friday have crafted a debut that is no mere polemic, but allows imagist lyrics and inventive song-craft to create a palpable sense of character for the listener to lean into. It cuts a slice through influences, that stretch from the early ’70s, up to the present day – sifting, magpie-like, through the works of The Breeders, The Slits, Girlpool, Placebo, and (perhaps unconsciously) the C86 movement. Throughout, that bass sound flows, like a dark river, stretching a taut string across ten tracks, that each ring with their own distinct power. In short, Girl Friday have constructed a debut that’s suitable for all the days of the week.

Androgynous Mary is out 21st August via Hardly Art. Pre-order here.

John McGovern
@etinsuburbiaego

Photo Credit: Al Kalyk

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