Five Favourites: pink suits

Having released their blazing debut, Political Child, back in 2021, Margate duo pink suits have now just released their second album. Inspired by the relentless over saturation of bleak news cycles, Dystopian Hellscape may be a little more self-reflective, silly and sexy than its predecessor, but loses none of the band’s politically aggressive, anti-Tory, anti-Fascist, Feminist Queer Energy. Inspired by a newspaper article entitled The News Comes So Often, It Makes You Sick, Dystopian Hellscape explores the effects of modern society and neoliberal politics on our mental health with pinks suits’ trademark tenacious spirit and raw musicality. Reflecting on the sense of confusion and frustration that comes with the over-saturation of scandal and disaster within mainstream media, the album also discusses themes of self-care, grief, gender identity, sexuality, queer joy and – of course – coffee. From the riotous power of searing rallying cry ‘Refuse The Rules’, and the fiercely uncompromising reclamation of being confident in who you are, ‘Are You Gay Yet?’, the album showcases pink suits’ ability to channel frustration into a perfect raging catharsis. 

We think one of the best ways to get to know a band is by asking what music inspires them. So, to celebrate the release of the Dystopian Hellscape, I caught up with Ray and Lennie to find out about the music that inspires them the most. Read about their five favourite albums, watch the video for recent single ‘C.O.F.F.E.E‘ and make sure you check out the full album on bandcamp now!

The Runaways – The Runaways
The Runaways’ debut album, which was released in 1976, is one of my fave albums of all time, as well as being a huge influence on the kind of music I (Ray) wanted to make when we started pink suits. I think I discovered The Runaways when I was about 14 and got completely obsessed with them. I think the fact that they were so young on this record, and when I found them I was also so young, it gave me a radical feeling of possibility. Which when you’re 14 feels pretty wild! I think I immediately assembled a band of misfits and people I thought could kick-off pretty well given the chance, which we were all extremely excited about and equally I think all knew it was never actually gonna happen. I loved the uninhibited energy they had, and I’m still waiting for my front-man moment – out from behind the drums! I wanna be front and centre, swinging the mic around and working the crowd.

** Sadly and disappointedly, it turns out Cherie Currie is a massive terf! But Joan Jett is still an icon, so we can breathe easy for that! Although this album and The Runaways will always be a big influence on us as a band we cannot support anyone with transphobic views. We have played ‘Cherry Bomb’ for the last time…

Amyl and The Sniffers – Big Attraction and Giddy Up
This album was one of the biggest references of sound for Dystopian Hellscape. Everyone went mad for Comfort To Me, which is a great album, but we think Big Attraction and Giddy Up is the most exciting LP. It is 2 EPs – Giddy Up was written and released all in a 12 hour time span, and then Big Attraction was written later that year. You can get the LP of both of these EPs together (though it has just disappeared from Spotify?). We love this LP, it feels so rough and ready. Amy is such a force as a front person and we love the energy they bring every time; you can feel it through the record just as much as you do live, which is definitely something we strive for as well. We find recording hard because of the challenge of getting the live feel and energy across. Not that many bands manage it, but we think Big Attraction and Giddy Up really feels like the live band.

Allison Russell – Outside Child
This debut album from Allison Russell came out in 2021, and is probably our most listened to album of all time. I think we listened to it a few times a day everyday for over a year – the best thing that we did during lockdown! It’s just incredible. It is a very personal and heart wrenching album about trauma, childhood, love, loss, growth, and her voice is just amazing. We have had the chance to see her live a couple times and wept throughout the whole show; honestly one of the most stunning humans to see. The content of the music is often quite heavy, but she is able to bring a joy and lightness to it. We love her so much!

Orville Peck – Pony
As some of you probably know, when we aren’t being a punk band we are full country babes – we run a night called Queer Cuntry, and we owe a lot of that to Orville Peck. We got immediately obsessed with him as soon as we heard this debut album of his, he really brought back a sort of old country sound which is the style of country music we love. He is also just very camp and queer and theatrical, which we relate to in a lot of ways. This album and the music videos and performances we saw from him were pretty incredible; he combines a sort of cinematic storytelling with camp aesthetics in a way that just works. There’s no fighting it! He also used to be in a punk band and trained in ballet, so really we are kindred spirits in so many ways. We saw him four times in 2019, and the live shows are so much fun. Queer Cuntry has taken off in a big way for us (we are bringing it to Chaka Khan’s Meltdown Festival in June!), and Pony was the album that gave us a kick up the ass and made us start doing country.
(You can catch pink suits in their country guise supporting Dolly Parton tribute band The Dumb Blondes on 19th July at Sebright Arms – tickets are already moving quick, so don’t miss out!)

Bob Vylan – We Live Here
This is another album that we absolutely rinsed when it came out. As soon as we heard the title track we were obsessed, and then we got the whole album and every song is fucking killer. This was such an inspiring album as we were putting together our debut album political child and were thinking about how aggressively violent and political it was; we were not worried about saying what we wanted to say, but we were curious how it would land as we were not hearing that much new music that was so full of rage. Then we heard We Live Here and we were like YES! Let’s fucking go with this angry and violent protest album! I used to go running and listen to political child straight into We Live Here to see if our album stood up next to the Bobbys… We think it does, and we got to support Bob Vylan in Ramsgate a year later, and the live show is just so so good! These guys give it absolutely everything and deserve all the success they are having.

We just realised we have a kink for debut albums! I guess that makes sense, it is so exciting to see how a new artist chooses to burst into the world. All of the subsequent material from these artists is amazing too, but clearly we love that first fresh taste. 

Massive thanks to pink suits for sharing their Five Favourites with us! Make sure you check out their full new album, Dystopian Hellscape, now. And catch them live across the country over the next few months, including at Cro Cro Land in South London this Saturday, 13th April.



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INTERVIEW: Brimheim

Multi-instrumentalist Helena Heinesen Rebensdorff is finding strength in self scrutiny. On her second album, RATKING, the Danish-Faroese artist, who performs under the moniker Brimheim, finds catharsis in the contradictions of love and comfort in her own audaciously dark humour.

Released at the end of March, her latest effort is as raw as her 2022 debut offering, can’t hate myself into a different shape, but on RATKING, she vivaciously embraces remnants of shame, hyper-sensitivity and unrequited love, and sets them to a more pop-tinged, melodic backdrop.

Speaking to me on the same day that RATKING officially entered the world (mildly hungover from a panel event and performance the night before to celebrate its release), Brimheim is just as open to elaborating on her processes and reflecting on the highs and lows of creating music as she was when we initially connected two years ago.

Back then, she explained that the songs that formed her debut record were mined from a “deep depression hole” which she experienced towards the latter end of 2020. There are elements of this vulnerability and darkness on RATKING, but the starting point for creating her new album was completely different. Returning to the studio to work alongside esteemed producer, musician and friend Søren Buhl Lassen (Blaue Blume), Brimheim had no demos and no notes to spark the creative process; so the pair began improvising and experimenting with the sounds that eventually formed the tracklist for RATKING.

“I definitely think that I would not have been able to make this record with a new producer,” Brimheim comments about its inception. “It required trust to go to places that we’ve gone, both sonically, and with trying to expand the outer margins of what a Brimheim record can be.” She elaborates on how this was trust was initially built between Søren and herself: “Towards the end of creating the first record, Søren and I made this little interlude called ‘like a wedding’. It’s just this 40 second bit that we jammed in the studio. That worked so well and it was a really cool process. So, when we started making RATKING, we tried to do that for the whole album, and it was mostly a very intuitive process.”

As the pair worked more intensely on these new improvisations together, Brimheim noticed that thematic threads were beginning to appear. “I didn’t have any theme guiding me with what I wanted to do sonically, or lyrically. But after the first few weeks of working in that way, and gathering some songs that came very effortlessly to us, and how we could build on that – that’s when the process got a little more intentional and guided.”

This confidence in each other’s abilities takes many forms on RATKING. Whether it’s the fully fleshed band sound and distinctive instrumentation on tracks like ‘Dancing In The Rubble’ and ‘Keep Bleeding Diamonds’, the infectious pop melodies on singles ‘Literally Everything’, ‘Brand New Woman’ and ‘Normies’, or the sonically more expansive tracks like ‘No Liver, No Lungs’ and ‘Surgeon’, Brimheim and Søren have crafted an eclectic and exhilarating collection of lush alt-pop anthems.

When listening to RATKING, it feels as if Brimheim – as she states herself – is giving ‘Literally Everything’ to her listeners, coolly musing during the track that “It’s easier than I thought / To turn my secrets into your entertainment”. She agrees that her second offering is definitely “a more extroverted and confident record.”

Whilst the confessional lyrics on can’t hate myself into a different shape offered a raw, startling glimpse into the thoughts and struggles of an introverted and often vulnerable narrator, on RATKING, Brimheim gleefully leans into the “unreliable narrator” role. She fluctuates between intense romantic extrapolations and painful sentiments on heartbreak, isolation and neglect – often all within the same song. This is especially true of her current favourite track, ‘Fell Through The Ice’. “It has this quiet desperation,” she explains, “but it ends up spilling out like gall, and there is this humour in how ridiculously pathetic the narrator is in the song.”

We dive a little deeper into some of the album’s other tracks, particularly ‘No Liver, No Lungs’ and ‘Surgeon’, which I offer up as my favourites. “To me, they’re a little bit like the sleeper songs on the album,” she comments. “I think that they have a lot of depth and are really interesting. Those songs are the ones where we’re stripping away most of the ‘traditional rock band’ arrangement. They are mostly electronic.”

“With ‘No Liver, No Lungs’, I don’t remember much about making this song because it was so effortless. We chose to put ‘Surgeon’ after it on the tracklist, because we’d opened up the portal to that sonic world. So we could go a bit further into this world and make it a bit dark, even a little scary. When we created ‘Surgeon’, it was a long day in the studio. It is actually kind of an oppressive soundscape if you listen to it for 8 hours straight. But I think it was such a cool nuance to include. Again, to me, it is expanding the scope of the kind of music that I can make.”

Building on and expanding her artistry as Brimheim naturally extended into the accompanying visuals for RATKING. In the video for her first single ‘Literally Everything’, Brimheim is dressed luxuriously in baby pink, posturing and performing inside a dark barn amongst animals and their excrement – accurately serving the track’s title. She is toying with the duality of perception and expectation; what something looks like vs how it really feels – and how we often mask the truth from others and of course, from ourselves.

Brimheim manages to transform moments of intense discomfort into deliciously dark and humorous visual vignettes. Whether she’s enamoured with a strange, tentacle-headed monster in the accompanying video for candid earworm ‘Normies’, or force feeding herself prawn cocktail at the dining table inside an extravagant mansion in the visuals for ‘Brand New Woman’, she does so with a wry and knowing smile.

“Each of the video’s directors understood that there was a humour to this thing – it’s almost self-deprecating, but not, at the same time,” she elaborates. “It’s something that I love to play around with, and the videos underline that tone of voice in a good way. I was very happy about that.” This comes across especially strongly in the visuals for ‘Brand New Woman’, featuring fellow Danish singer/songwriter Emma Grankvist aka eee gee.

Brimheim’s brief to director Stine Emil was “housewife – but make it creepy”, so they rented a huge mansion north of Copenhagen for the shoot. “Stine really took that idea and ran with it in a super cool way,” she comments, “and I got to act a little bit at the end, which is something I’ve always wanted to try my hand at. That’s actually ended up with me being cast in a feature film that I’ll be shooting later this year too.”

Collaborating with like-minded artists, directors and producers, and the opportunities that arise from these experiences, is something that Brimheim is deeply excited and appreciative of. “It’s challenging and wonderful, and such a weird position to be in, launching your career towards your late twenties and early thirties,” she reflects. This extends to her feelings about her upcoming UK tour, which includes a headline show at The Lexington in London on 22nd May. “I’ve been dreaming about going on a tour like this since I was 12 years old,” she smiles. “I’m 34 now, and it took a long time to get here, but I am extremely excited.”

We end our conversation with a chat about an artist that she’s currently listening to. “I’m obsessed with Tony Njoku, who is just incredible,” she enthuses. “I know him privately and I’ve followed his journey throughout the past 7 years, when we met on a conservatory exchange week. He’s just released a new song, which is a neo-classical piece, but he also does really hard-hitting alternative electronic/alternative pop music. It’s just stellar. I cannot gush about him enough. He’s prolific. He releases so much music, and it’s always so different. He showed me some tracks that he’s working on and I’m like ‘okay, he is going to get very famous, very soon.’ He is just ridiculously good.”

Brimheim’s latest album RATKING is available here

Grab a ticket for her London headline show at The Lexington on 22nd May here

Follow Brimheim on bandcamp, Spotify, Instagram & Facebook

Photo Credit: Photo by André Hansen

Kate Crudgington
X: @kate_crudge
Insta: kate_getinherears

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Five Favourites: Jess Ribeiro

Having shared stages with the likes of Angel Olsen and Nick Cave, Australian artist Jess Ribeiro is now set to release her new album, Summer Of Love, next month. Written during a time of instability and reflecting on themes of isolation and loss, the emotion rich splendour of her vocals shine throughout, offering a glimmer of hope during uncertain times. As her poignant lyricism ripples alongside a glistening yet gritty musicality, the album showcases Ribero’s ability to create stirring heartfelt anthems with a captivating grace.

We think one of the best ways to get to know an artist is by asking what music inspires them. So, to celebrate the upcoming release of the new album, I caught up with Jess to find out about the music that inspires her the most. Read about her five favourite albums and watch the video for recent single ‘Everything Is Now‘ below!

George Rrurrambu and Birdwave – Baru
I first heard this record in the Northern Territory when I lived in Darwin, and spent lot of time touring remote and outback locations. My bass player at the time started this group with his brother as well as with the legend George Rrurrambu, a famous Indigenous musician who performed in the Warmupi Band in the ’70s/’80s. George was known for his rock music, singing in Yolngu Mate (his mother tongue), as well as English, but in this outfit it’s more reggae with his trance like singing in Yolngu Mate. I love when artists are open to experimenting with different genres and, as a songwriter, I really like writing songs in all styles. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but this combination works for sure. I hold this album in my heart as one of the greatest Australian albums of all time. It’s very hard to get a physical copy of it, but look it up on YouTube. 

PJ Harvey – Dry
When I was 13 I bought a black and white tv for $5.00 from a second hand store. I set it up in my bedroom and invited a friend over for a sleep over so we could watch RAGE, the weekend music program that started at midnight. Led Zeppelin came on which was cool, but then the music clip for the song ‘Dress’ by PJ Harvey came on and changed my world. The song blew my mind. It made me feel crazy. The strings at the end were a revelation as I was a very lazy learner (of the violin), and the song gave me hope that maybe I didn’t have to read the music and play nicely. There is a sexy guitar line in the instrumental section and still to this day I want to listen to that song on repeat. I lived in a small town where it was hard to access music, but I somehow managed to borrow Dry from an older girl at school and I taped it onto cassette. A friend’s older sister showed me how to play some chords on the guitar and eventually I taught myself how to play the song ‘Joe’. Soon after, I gave up violin and moved to writing songs and playing guitar.

Kate Bush – Hounds Of Love
I listened to a lot of my dad’s records growing up and was particularly drawn to his Kate Bush collection. An art teacher discovered I was a fan and gave me lots of videos, CDs and books on Kate Bush and Wilhelm Reich to study and read. Kate Bush wrote a song about Reich called ‘Cloudbusting’. The cloudbusting machine was created by Reich, who believed he could release orgasmic energy into the air which would dissolve pollution and stop war. He was jailed by the American government and his son wrote a book about it called ‘A Book of Dreams’. That’s what the song Cloudbusting is about. Each track on this record is a story condensed into a song; Kate Bush is a very good storyteller,songwriter, dancer and actor. I’d love to get better at bringing these elements into my writing.

Patti Smith – Horses
I was sitting in a circle with some girlfriends getting stoned one day after school, and someone put on the album Horses. I started tripping out to the lyrics; it made me feel rebellious and made me want to be a poet. The album was produced by John Cale, whose music I now deeply love, he is also part of the Lou Reed, Velvet Underground lineage. This album influenced me to be who I am and work with what I have, which is a short attention span and not much interest in premeditating production. I love vibing music with a group and being open to spontaneity in the studio. Patti  improvised the lyrics to the song ‘Birdland’ in the studio – they come from ‘A Book of Dreams’ by Peter Reich (she too wrote a song about Reich who made the cloud busting machine!). When I went to university I studied classical music and singing. In my final exam, the teachers told me I was a performance poet more than a technical musician – I took this as a compliment, as I never had any desire to become an opera singer or a classical musician.

Nirvana – MTV Unplugged In New York
I saw this on tv at about 2am in the morning and it became my favourite Nirvana record. Every song is fucking fabulous, including the cover songs by Bowie, Leadbelly, The Meat Puppets and more. I love it when rock artists present stripped back versions of their songs. The harmonies in this live recording are beautiful and there is a cello in there too! This album made me realise a good song is a good song, and I aspire to make a good song that can be performed with a whole band or solo.

Massive thanks to Jess Ribeiro for sharing her Five Favourites! Watch the video for her beautiful single ‘Everything Is Now’ here:

Summer Of Love, the new album from Jess Ribeiro, is set for release on 12th April via Labelman, pre-order here. And she’s coming over to the UK in May – info here.

Photo Credit: Nick Mckk

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LIVE (Photos): Grace Petrie – Islington Assembly Hall, 14.03.24

Having last seen Grace Petrie live at local venue Stanley Arts back in 2021, and spoken to her earlier that year, it was great to get the opportunity to see her again – this time with a full live band at Islington Assembly Hall, and oozing even more understated, yet strident, empowering charm than ever before. A truly wonderful and unifying evening, celebrating the release of her new album, Build Something Better (and in anticipation of its exciting top 30 chart position the following day), it was a real pleasure to experience her poignant, politically-charged anthems amongst a filled venue of like-minded individuals. With her lilting folk-strewn musicality elevated and energised with the addition of Robin Gatt on lead guitar, Francesca Knowles on drums, Jasmine Kennedy on bass and Amy Thatcher on accordion, as well as her constant comrade Ben Moss on fiddle, it felt like a particularly special evening; whilst not holding back with addressing issues of urgency with a fierce spirit, Petrie was able to create an atmosphere of joyous warmth and solidarity. Resonant, necessary messages delivered with an infectious energy, inciting us to unite and fight against the forces that seek to oppress us. 

As well as being lucky enough to immerse ourselves in Grace’s live set, we were able to have a quick chat about the new album and tour, see our photos from the night, and snippets from the interview below.

“Build Something Better is probably my most political record for a long while. It was inspired by the general sense of dissatisfaction in modern day Britain, especially the nationalistic undertones that the government are utilising to try and distract from the many ways that people are increasingly unhappy and dissatisfied with living standards here. And that just kind of inspired a lot of angry, political songs.”

“Writing the album, I was very inspired by different folk-rock albums, like Bruce Springsteen’s Wrecking Ball, The Decemberists, and an Australian band called The Maes that I’ve been listening to a lot recently.”

“I’ve been having an amazing time touring it, this is my first time playing with this line-up, and it’s just been absolutely amazing. I couldn’t ask for a better band to lift these songs to an amazing new live level that I’ve never been able to access before. I’ve just been having a really great time!”

GIHE alumni Gabi Garbutt also delivered a really beautiful set as support, before Molly Naylor treated us to her witty and relatable poetry.

Build Something Better, the new album from Grace Petrie, is out now via The Robot Needs Home Collective. And Grace will be heading out to Australia this week for a couple of live dates, before heading back there in May for the Guilty Feminist tour. More info here.

Photo Credit: Paul Dawes / @GRNDglass

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