Saturday 30 July 2011

Interview: FOE

http://www.tourdates.co.uk/londontourdates/issue-075/2011/07/15/2602-foe-coke-fiend

"For Clarke, FOE represents a meeting of noisy alt sounds and more refined, pop song structures. Her Tumblr is a mixed paean to twisted rockers such as Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor, and artists on the wholesome, clean-cut end of the pop spectrum. Though her Genie In A Coke Can EP may have given the impression she was parodying pop, she confesses a deep respect for it. “I think people got the wrong idea with Genie In A Coke Can; I think they thought I was attacking pop, which wasn't the case. I love artists like Celine Dion, and big power-pop ballads; I think a lot of people do, but it’s not cool to admit it"-

I talked to Hannah Louise Clarke, aka FOE, for this month's issue of Tour Times (the one with Grinder Man on the front), on pop, dressing-up, lost friends, playground torment, and how her old band Arthur almost opened for Queen Adreena one time. She also talked about how she'd like PJ-style longevity, which made me marvel, for the zillionth time, at how a woman who has had such a problematic public relationship to non-allegiances with feminism continues to be the ultimate pinnacle icon for young (predominantly white/indy-leaning) female songwriters.


Tuesday 26 July 2011

I want yr double cheeeeeese

 http://www.wearsthetrousers.com/2011/07/japanese-voyeurs-yolk/

"Alice poses an empowering figure against the sludgy punk noise and fertility themes of Yolk. As the principal songwriter, she’s both brutal and poetic, a little-girl voice projecting a grown-up sensuality from the centre of the distortion-fuelled maelstrom. On ‘Get Hole’, where she cries, “The nights are long, and I am lonely / I want your love but I want it slowly,” she voices an assertive desire, and even ‘Double Cheese’, with its lascivious slacker innuendo and wild-out solo, feels kinky and unabashed, a sweaty, teen hormone fest done grrrl style"

Friday 15 July 2011

Gazelle Twin - The Entire City

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jul/14/gazelle-twin-entire-city-review

First ever 5/5 at The Guardian Film&Music, for Gazelle Twin's The Entire City. Eerie/sensual gothtronica, queer tropes, sci-fi film score atmospherics  - how could I not love this?