ONLY NOISE: A Woman Like Your Kind

Today is International Women’s Day, and people are celebrating in many ways. This American Life devoted their entire show on Tuesday night to listening to the stories of five women who were sexually harassed by media executive Don Hazen, giving individual voice to members of the #MeToo movement. Mattel came out with 17 new Barbie dolls celebrating diverse and historic women like artist Frida Kahlo, Australian conservationist Bindi Irwin, and NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson. Our favorite female and non-binary music festival, The Hum, has announced a new run of shows slated for May, and various Women’s Day events have sprung up across the world. In my own way of celebrating women, here are five groundbreaking female musicians pushing their formats forward.

U.S. Girls

U.S. Girls mastermind Meg Remy has always looked to the past for inspiration – her decade-deep catalog often reverberating with sounds of ‘70s disco and Phil Spector’s girl groups. Those influences haven’t dissipated entirely on Remy’s latest LP In a Poem Unlimited, but Remy has forged something completely new from them. Remy has garnered more widespread attention with this album than any prior release, and while that could easily be attributed to its near perfect track list, it may have occurred as a result of topic and timing.

In a Poem Unlimited chronicles female rage in an era when it’s finally being recognized. From James Bond-tinged revenge epic “Velvet 4 Sale,” to the satirical “Pearly Gates,” Remy and her U.S. Girls collective have crafted something fresh and relevant, wrapping rocky subject matter in swaths of multicolored silk. Standout track “M.A.H.” (“Mad As Hell”) combines these two assets seamlessly, succinctly verbalizing what women have been feeling for too long over an ABBA-esque dance cut. “As if you couldn’t tell, I’m mad as hell,” she sings. “I won’t forget, so why should I forgive?/Supply me with one reason why, boy?” Pertinent questions these days.

CupcakKe

Chicago rapper CupcakKe, aka Elizabeth Harris, has been in the game for longer than you might think. Harris began releasing music on the web in 2012, and her 2016 mixtape Cum Cake caught the attention of critics for its unabashed lewdness. None of that raunchiness is lost on CupcakKe’s most recent LP Ephorize. Harris is the lightning-tongued, pornographic poet we’ve all been waiting for. Her brand of female sexuality is raw and unapologetic, debunking the myth that women are less sexual creatures than men with streams of dirty verses. She celebrates LGBTQ love on “Crayons” and her love for dick on “Duck Duck Goose.” Cupcakke is easily one of the most progressive MCs on these matters, and when it comes to the societal damning of women’s sexuality, she’s furious. “Females have sex on the first night they get called a ho for that one night stand,” she raps on “Self Interview,” “Men have sex on the first night, congratulations!” “Most wouldn’t comprehend/Double standards need to end.” Preach, High Priestess Cupcakke.

 SOPHIE

Scotland born, Los Angeles based producer SOPHIE is making pop music dangerous again. The transgender artist is seemingly allergic to binaries, and therefore makes music that is difficult to categorize. There are elements of techno, disco, and deep house, but her work also boasts more the “difficult” sounds of industrial and noise music. “A lot of the stuff I’ve done takes the attitude of disco but tries to bring the sound world forward,” she told Teen Vogue last year. “We’re in a different world now. I’m trying to imagine what music that’s positive, liberating, weird, dark, and real could be in the current day.” SOPHIE has achieved all of those descriptors in her music, and she’s one of the few contemporary artists that can truly be called cutting edge. Her live shows are a mixture of theater, rave, and performance art, and her skill as a producer is unrivaled. She can turn the fizz of soda into a symphony and the screech of latex into a solo. SOPHIE will undoubtedly have a hand in how the future of pop music is shaped.

Moor Mother

Moor Mother is the project of Philly poet, musician, and activist Camae Ayewa, whose music blurs the lines between hip-hop, gothic industrial, and spoken word. Moor Mother is angry, and she has every right to be. She raps about domestic violence, race riots, and police brutality through layers of distortion, and her live sets are a blatant display of her rage. Ayewa’s music is compelling through headphones, but contagious in person; her body thrashes with each verse, making the air around her taut with fury. Her last record, 2016’s Fetish Bones is a stirring amalgam of disturbing poems laid over horror movie noise-scapes. Moor Mother’s sound is a much-needed slap in the face to oppression.

Jlin

Jerilynn Patton is one badass woman. A top-notch producer and steel mill worker from Gary, Indiana, Patton, aka Jlin, has taken the independent music community by storm with her last two records, 2015’s Dark Energy and last year’s Black Origami. Jlin’s music is instantly recognizable, and while it incorporates electronic genres like footwork and house, her stamp of authenticity lies in the clanging metallic rhythms, West African percussion, and dizzying synths she weaves through her beats. Her live sets are robust and disorienting, causing more convulsions than dancing. In an industry, and a genre (electronic music) that is overwhelmed by men, Jlin makes harder beats than just about anyone.

LIVE REVIEW: Slim Twig + U.S. Girls @ Cake Shop

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Photo by Meg Remy
Photo by Meg Remy

All I want is a hot toddy, but the more patient half of me says now’s not the time to order one. Despite my polite efforts and hacking cough, something of greater urgency than a breathing statistic of flu season needs tending to.

The bartender zips along the length of the counter clamping a cordless phone between her ear and shoulder. Her bar back frantically cleans tumblers and disappears periodically. Meanwhile Max Turnbull and his wife Meghan Remy (aka Slim Twig and his wife U.S. Girls) are schlepping amplifiers through the front door of Cake Shop 20 minutes after opener Ryan Sambol-who is sitting right next to me-is supposed to start.

It’s been a rough night for everyone.

Things settle down. The bar is calm. I have booze; the warm, honey and lemon accessorized kind that allows you to be a lush and say “this is good for me!” at the same time.

I am now wedged between a Tinder date and a semi-bilingual French-lesson date (how you say, Tinder?) taking notes in my journal, which I’m sure doesn’t look odd at all. I might as well be chiseling a stone tablet and wearing badger fur.

Collecting cash and stamping hands for the evening is Cake Shop co-owner Andy Bodor, perched on a stool by the venue door. Ryan Sambol emerges from downstairs, despondently shaking his head:

“You know what man, I don’t even wanna play tonight.”

Bodor looks shattered.

“What do you mean???”

“Y’know, it’s just, I come all the way from Texas and I just don’t think….”

I realize that though the dust from earlier has settled, a whole new sandstorm is about to kick up; and then Sambol cracks a smile.

“I’m just kidding!!!” Bodor sighs: “Jesus man, you really got me there.”

Two warm alcohols deep I make my way to the show space. I’m met by a hush crowd politely watching the tricky Texan. It’s not easy to captivate audiences these days, and it’s even harder to do so with such modest and arcane things like a guitar and microphone, but Sambol seems to have this covered. It doesn’t hurt that he’s a good lookin’ boy from the Lone Star State with a voice like Nashville Skyline era Dylan.

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His stage presence reminds me of a less-tortured Jeff Buckley…a more lighthearted, plucky Buckley, if you will.  Buckleyness aside, Sambol’s ability to work a room makes sense: he’s been in the biz for over a decade. He helped form The Strange Boys as an eighth grader and subsequently toured with everyone from Julian Casablancas to Spoon. After Strange Boys dissolved in 2012, Sambol and co. reemerged as Living Grateful releasing two LPs in 2014.  I’ve yet to find anything about a forthcoming solo record from Sambol, but if one ever surfaces it will probably sound like his live set: sweet, melty and melancholy.

Sambol played a mix of originals as well as a few covers, announcing them with familial ease: “You can thank Sly Stone for that one.” And I guess we can thank Mr. Sambol for coming all the way from Texas and playing after all.

During the set, I couldn’t help but notice Meg Remy and Max Turnbull at the end of the bar. It made me wonder if it’s difficult to tour with your spouse. Do you bicker over who’s headlining? Take turns on merch table duty? Get jealous when your better half’s record sells more copies than yours? I guess it depends, but judging by the highly collaborative artistic relationship Remy and Turnbull have had, they seem pretty supportive. They lugged the gear together, and played integral roles in each other’s performances for the night.

U.S. Girls was up next. For those unfamiliar with Remy’s music, it is paradoxical in many ways. She goes by a plural, so you’d expect a full band, or at the very least a duo. You wouldn’t guess it was just her by listening to GEM, her FATCAT release from 2012, which is full-bodied, textural and pleasantly schizophrenic.

The self-sufficient musical project is far more achievable these days given the ease of home recording and distribution, but it does make for an interesting dilemma; how does one perform live?  According to Meg Remy: with a Moog and a microphone

It doesn’t sound great on paper, but it’s difficult to describe someone like Remy, who might be made of charisma. A bit dazed while performing, she is focused and calculated. Her body language and voice seem siphoned straight from the 1960s, and I wonder if she really is in trance-watching a mirage of Nancy Sinatra at the back of the room and mirroring her every shimmy.

An equally enigmatic musician, Max Turnbull recorded his sinister pop-opera A Hound at the Hem all the way back in 2010 as a contract fulfillment to Paper Bag records. Unfortunately Paper Bag deemed it too weird, causing Turnbull to shelve the LP and record Sof’ Sike instead.  Hound did have a limited co-release via Pleasance Records and Remy/Turnbull’s own imprint Calico Corp, but it was reissued last year thanks to New York’s own DFA records. DFA saw the album’s brilliance and pressed 600 copies-100 of them on Pepto Bismol pink vinyl.

Hound is a complex and beautiful record. It’s been called chamber pop, psych rock and garnered many other comparisons.  As an impulse evaluation I’d say there are heavy notes of Nick Cave and Van Dyke Parks throughout.

If you didn’t know the chronology of Hound’s lifespan, you might be surprised to see Slim Twig live.  On the album’s sleeve is a clean-shaven kid with a pompadour. Behind the microphone at Cake Shop was a mustached matchstick with long tangled hair. Ever evolving, Turnbull’s look wasn’t the only thing drastically different from his Hound days.  His set didn’t include any songs from the album, which I must admit bummed me out a little.

That’s not to say the music wasn’t exciting and well played, but it was much more straight-forward seventies rock n’ roll- a far cry from the bizzarro orchestra of Hound.  That being said, I can sympathize with a musician not wanting to play songs written five years ago.

Slim Twig’s set was both humble and satirically contradictory. “This song’s about not fetishizing the past” was an intro that struck me as aggressively ironic, since fetishizing the past is what millennials, including myself-are best at.

Though the set was more melodic than I’d expected, there was no shortage of precision and energy.  And fortunately, any deficit of strangeness was made up for by the little eccentricities that can only be experienced at a live show.  While introducing one song Turnbull curtly quipped: “This song is about Jesus Christ.”  To my left a middle-aged Hasidic man clapped and cheered in his seat, occasionally using his cocktail straw as a conductor’s wand; other times bringing it to his lips to take a long drag.

I guess the night was a success after all.

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VIDEO REVIEW: Slim Twig’s “Hover on a Sliver”

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photo by Meg Remy
photo by Meg Remy

Canadian shape-shifter Max Turnbull, the man behind the moniker Slim Twig, could never resign to making just a music video.

Given his pedigreed rearing in all camps of the art world-musical, celluloid, and illustrative-it’s no surprise that his most recent one is more of a scored short film than a formulaic MTV standard. In fact, the opening credits prove this as they read: “Repulsion Revisited-A video set to the music of Slim Twig’s ‘Hover on a Sliver’ from the album A Hound at the Hem.”

The text tells us a lot actually, namely that Turnbull is one lucky fella surrounded by a trio of talented women known as 3 Blondes and a Camera.  As it turns out, these aren’t just any ol’ blondes. Shooter/editor Meg Remy of U.S. Girls is Slim’s wife, director/producer Jennifer Hazel is his mom, and the star of the screen is none other than sister Lulu Hazel Turnbull, who has performed in a handful of U.S. Girls videos as well. All and all it seems like a pretty loving collaboration.

The short itself is less warm and fuzzy than the relationship between its makers would suggest. At first glance we see a projected eyeball squirming on the silk of a nightgown. It glares relentlessly and swooshes to the crescendo of robotic bleating. This opening scene connotes more of the climactic build one finds in horror films, which makes all the more sense when we finally catch sight of Lulu, who is all Hitchock heroine in a frosty coif and peach negligee.

Lulu sketches furiously atop a wall projection, smearing charcoal with the agitation of a stain-scrubbing housewife. These moments of creation are the only in which she seems impassioned and present; she traverses the rest of her life with a far off gaze and tepid neuroticism. It’s the kind of mental diversity one might need while listening to Slim Twig, whose sound ranges from schizophrenic noise to masterly crafted pop.

Enjoy the sweet and sinister video for “Hover on a Sliver” below:

 

A Hound at the Hem is out now on DFA Records.  Be sure to snatch one of the limited pressings on pink vinyl while they last!

 

SLIM TWIG TOUR DATES:

Thu. Jan. 15 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle w/ US GIRLS

Fri. Jan. 16  – Cleveland, OH @ Happy Dog (east location) w/ US GIRLS

Sat. Jan. 17 – Brooklyn, NY @ Palisades w/ US GIRLS, Bottoms

Sun. Jan. 18 – New York, NY @ Cake Shop w/ US GIRLS

Mon. Jan. 19 – Boston, MA @ Middle East Upstairs w/ US GIRLS

Wed. Jan. 21 – Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz w/ US GIRLS

Fri. Jan. 23 – Toronto, ON @ Silver Dolla

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