Month: October 2022

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Reviews

Maggie The Cat: Donne Moi Ta Chose

Released on October 25th, “Donne Moi Ta Chose” is the third single from Maggie the Cat’s forthcoming album on Trashmouth Records (the title of which remains shrouded in delicious anticipation). Expect kitsch, campy glamour with avant-garde pop leanings and generous lashings of the old Madonnatron witches’ brew that we all know and love.

With her white-blonde hair, enormous kohl-lined blue eyes and soulful, crystalline voice, Maggie embodies a Hollywood starlet by way of south London with a sense of humor and a license to kill. Add that to her smart and imaginative songs about desire, murder, bloodshed, longing (and now, in French!) and what more could you possibly want from a pop chanteuse?

“Donne Moi Ta Chose” is described in the label’s release notes as “… a playful dose of scornful disco-sleaze, a mechano-electronic disco anthem for the shameless & the obscene.” The lyrics manage to be both funny and erotic (a difficult task to accomplish, indeed). The line, “savouring your trash/rutting in the aftermath. . .” conjures images of Ann-Margret in Tommy, frolicking in baked beans, melted chocolate and champagne bubbling inexplicably out of a smashed television set and into her white satin bedroom. It’s sexy, funny, weird, a bit surreal, and very, very Maggie. 

Maggie also recently guest-starred on the acid house supergroup Decius’s latest single, “Show Me No Tears,” her husky, soulful vocals dripping deliciously down over the throbbing techno beat. The video for the single shows a slew of orgiastic scenes from the proverbial casting couch, shot in handheld “gonzo-porn” style (to borrow a phrase from Irina Sturges). The track will feature on Decius’s upcoming debut album, Decius Vol. 1.

“Donne Moi Ta Chose” is out now on Trashmouth Records. You can buy the single at the link below. https://maggiethecattrashmouth.bandcamp.com/track/cry-baby-trashmouth-mix

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Reviews

Children of the Pope: Thalidomide Boy

“It was madness and sadness and drinking and dope and tears and anger and harsh plaster smiles…many people were rip-smashed and optimistic, but some knew better…”—Steve Levine

We are living through strange days, passengers on a badly engineered, shoddily constructed suicidal roller coaster with no finite end, zipping hell bent for leather into a fiery sunset without so much as a complimentary nitrous oxide mask to ease the increasing discomfort of the journey. Perhaps the least honorable way to spill your blood in public (and on the internet) is by complaining, and let this not be viewed as a complaint or a critique of a demented situation, but as a careful documentation of it. We are off into the unknown, heading straight into the inner reaches of outer space without any sound knowledge of the territory or its laws. 

Music, as always, is a chief source of solace, a refuge and an escape, and this month we are afforded a bit more of it in the form of the Children of the Pope’s most recent single release: “Thalidomide Boy,” debuted on October 14th, on Isolar Records.

It’s a song that follows in the vein of the group’s beloved psych rock– dreamlike, but with a twist of hard-nosed guitar riffs and a storyline to break your heart. The vocals carry an eerie, ethereal echo, as if resounding up from some cold cavernous depth. It’s not a comforting song, not a song to kick back on the loveseat and sip a glass of wine to. But you have Sinatra for that. The Children of the Pope are here to serve a different purpose entirely. They have proved their prescience once again with a track that explores the age-old way we find succor (“he brings the laudanum/clasps his hands around the cross”) without ultimately being able to drive away despair (“and he shouts/ and he screams/for everyone to see/ he’s the kind of guy who ends up walking in the middle of the street.”) It’s a relatable, empathetic depiction of a pattern that cuts through all our lives, albeit in different ways and forms.

Juno Valentine, the group’s front man and chief lyricist, spoke about the song’s meaning in-detail: “The song is a short story I created about a juvenile opiate dealer who suffers from a sleep walking disorder and ends up in 24-hour peep shows and blue movie cinemas and makes that his home for a good part of the week. He’s a devout Christian, but still appreciates the smells and atmosphere of the cinema screen. I think the whole story originated from feeling like an outcast growing up… a surrealist exaggeration of my time as a teenager.”

You can catch the Children of the Pope live at the Windmill Brixton on October 29th. Tickets are on sale on the venue website, linked below.

https://www.windmillbrixton.co.uk/events/2022-10-29-halloween-hellhole-all-dayer-the-windmill

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DISCOVER

Ave Maria: Bishopskin

Bishopskin and religious iconography are like bread and butter. Not only is it in their band name, song names, and running through their lyricism like a golden thread, but it is in their live performances, which feel like a spiritual awakening for both band and audience. Their new single, “Ave Maria,” is no different. Another postmodern indie rock canticle added to their discography that I’m sure is to be just as well received as their previous releases.    

Tiger Nicholson, lead vocalist, opens the tune with a sombre prayer-like monologue, describing the tangibility and mysticism of his natural surroundings, partnered with an angelic chant and clapping sequence reminiscent of simpler times. Almost tribal, it is backed by the cyclical moan of a saxophone, artfully played by Jed Holloway, the saxophonist of the eight-piece collective. Telling the story of visions of Jerusalem and Mary on the English moorland, the passion of the song close-to-physically transports you to the hillside with “old man England” conjuring your own images of the Virgin Mary among the “bracken.” The relatively historical element of the song is something that Bishopskin have carefully incorporated into their music, finding a niche that they so beautifully fill.     

The bursts of harsh raspy bass vocals of Nicholson’s exclamations of “Ave Maria!” and “feather” combined with a sharp, cleverly uncoordinated-yet-ethereal violin juxtapose the elegant choral singing of “Maria” in a way that I would argue perfectly represents how incredible and terrifying it must be to have these godly visions actually appear before you.    

Released on October 1st by Isolar Records, “Ave Maria” is a song I am certain you will fall in love with. Follow Bishopskin on Instagram at @bishopskin    

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