U&C: Goat Girl

Having recently signed to Rough Trade Recordings, Goat Girl are another new gift from the underbelly of the currently very active South London music scene. Their sarcastic political snarls and country blues (with a twist) style makes them show no fear or sign of disintegrating any time soon.

    (Credit: Youtube video, Peckham Safehouse)

The band’s identity is shown in vigorous force with their first two releases. ‘Country Sleaze’ is a track built around the Pixies style bass and crunching guitar topped off with soft yet teasingly sarcastic vocals. The lyrics are Stripped back and sung so effortlessly but are nevertheless striking to the ear – “I’m disgusted, I’m ashamed of this so-called human race”. The words are a short burst of emotional angst against a world full of recent  social controversy; Brexit, Trump, Isis etc.  Just what are they angry about? Chances are it isn’t specific, maybe its just a wild lash out at this country, from local pubs all the way up to The House of Commons. You can also watch this song within a video created by the wonderful artistic mind of Douglas Hart (The Jesus and Mary Chain), who uses flashing images to fuse the sounds into a visual experience.

‘Scum’ is another short burst of potential; the lyrics attack our nation once again, a set of words which would easily fit into the heated political moments of Britain of 2016 – “bite off your nationalist nails”.  The cutting lyrics fit in perfectly with the sleazy, almost mocking, jangly guitars. The drunken sound of the song exaggerates mischief, these two songs perfectly illustrate the band’s fearless and controversial attitude. The four girls seem ready to create rich, genre jumping records.

    (Credit: Country Sleaze music video)

Other than these releases, not much has been shown as the band are rarely present on the internet, people will have to leave their Spotify screens and go and see this band in person to get a feel for their stuff for now. This will not disappoint you either; their live shows have an irresistible bouncing energy, with numerous eerie bluesy tracks played back to back, the show will sadly be over before you know it but will leave you aching for more. The songs’ catchiness will grab you with first listens and their stage presence certainly makes them stiff competition for the bands they have been supporting such as YAK whose raw live performances have been a must see.

This band are still in their formative stages, yet they appear to have found a fresh and contagious sound which gives them unrelenting potential to stride into the gruelling world of music, putting the posers on all fours. You will hear a lot about Goat Girl over the next few years.

Country Sleaze video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlnkyZnqIZg

If you want to catch them, here are their tour dates:

18 November - Les In Rocks, Paris  
7 December – The Haunt, Brighton (with Girl Band)
8 December - Scala, London (with Girl Band)
9 December – Gorilla, Manchester (with Girl Band)
21 January - Arts Club, Liverpool (The Fall headline show)
22 January The Hare & Hounds, Birmingham (with Girl Band)
24 January Brudenell, Leeds (with Girl Band)
26th January Summerhall, Edinburgh (with Girl Band)
28th January - The Forum, London (The Fall headline show)

Toy - Clear Shot

The band Toy like to stretch the genres of shoegaze and psychedelic combining it with basic pop structures. After three years out of the studio, on Saturday 29^th October they release ‘Clear Shot’, their third studio album and with three singles released prior to it, it sounds like it will be their most cultivated record to date.

‘Clear Shot’ has been produced by David Wrench (Bat For Lashes, Everything Everything, Guillemots) and Chris Coady (Beach House, Future Islands) has mixed it in LA. These two have exquisite knowledge of developing albums and are sure to supply an original sound to ‘Clear Shot’. 

This can be heard in Toy’s first three singles that they have released; a distinct pristine sound is emphasised in each layer of the songs.  ‘Fast Silver’ was the first song released; it is a 6-minute single which isn’t a statement but rather drags the listener into a tranquil psychedelic voyage. The song is a moody first track as a return single, but it captivates the listener through the hypnotic haziness of Tom Dougall’s voice alongside haunting synths and vicious guitars.

  (Credit: Clear Shot Artwork)

‘I’m Still Believing’ takes us back to old school Toy; it is a break up song led by raw guitar chords and Tom’s exposing lyrics casually claiming “I feel unreal”. This song expresses Toy’s effortless skill of creating serene melodies, in possibly one of the simplest songs that they have created, it is one of the most important elements in their music.

‘Clouds That Cover the Sun’ shares similar qualities to Fast Silver, we are once again sucked into the voyage of hypnotic sound. It seems the band are maintaining their psychedelic influences a bit more over shoegaze and with a more developed intelligent sound. The song’s title is descriptive of the song itself, despite the song being quite melancholy there are sudden rays of sunny and exuberant sounds.

    (Credit: https://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2012/01/24/toy-shacklewell-arms-review/)

It is an exciting time for Toy and their fans, it seems like a long time since they have been present in the music scene. Now they return with a new album and a UK tour to once again perform their enthralling shows. Toy have released a free stream of their album recently on NPR Music but if you want to wait for its actual release, it drops on Saturday.

TRACK LISTING

1. Clear Shot
2. Another Dimension
3. Fast Silver
4. I’m Still Believing
5. Clouds That Cover The Sun
6. Jungle Games
7. Dream Orchestrator
8. We Will Disperse
9. Spirits Don’t Lie
10. Cinema

U&C: Ross From Friends

Don't let the jocularity of the name of this artist deceive you from the talent that is shown within his music. Ross From Friends, not David Schwimmer, is another exciting artist coming out of South London supplying us with electronic music scattered with influence from early electronica, hip hop and house music. These influences are shown through an elaborate use of sampling and nebulous 80s synths. You can forget the impatient waiting for underwhelming drops with this area of electronica, instead a more reserved approach is taken, introducing an intelligent design and structure to his songs.

    (Credit - Google maps)

Ross From Friends’ ‘The Alex Brown EP’ expressed a much more vigorous attempt at electronica giving out a hectic industrial atmosphere but relaxation can be found within the heavy club drum beats, especially on ‘Golf School’ as he uses a juxtaposition of melting fuzzy piano chords. You can find this Ep’s repress exclusively on Phonica Records.

What’s to come is undoubtedly exciting - he is releasing another EP on the 7^th October entitled ‘You’ll Understand’ following on from the song ‘Talk To Me You’ll Understand’ which has already been released. The song is immaculately pieced together with tropical sounding guitars eloping with fuzzy keyboards pitch changes on heart wrenching vocals quoting, ‘Talk to me’. The song has already reached over 500,000 views on YouTube which can only exaggerate the amount he will blow up after this EP.

     (Credit - 'Talk To Me You'll Understand' artwork)

You can also catch Ross From Friends playing at XOYO on the 8^th October, a day after his Ep is released - a show not to miss.



Listen:

Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/rossfromfriends

'Talk To Me You'll Understand' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tKKNV5sXUs