Filed under: free music friday, mp3 | Tags: charlotte richardson andrews, rah digga, the big 10
Rah Digga
‘Warning Shots’
Much-missed rapper Rah Digga announced her imminent comeback this week with this aptly named free download. Just over two minutes of tight, swaggering salutations, it’s a taster to whet appetites in anticipation for her upcoming album, tentatively titled The Big 10, which is set for a late spring/summer release through Raw Koncept Records. The release will be managed from end to end by producer Nottz, whose resumé includes hip hop giants such as Kanye West, Snoop Dogg and Busta Rhymes, an erstwhile colleague of Digga’s since her induction into the Flipmode Squad in the late ’90s. Previous to this, Rah Digga had been a member of Outsidaz, a New Jersey clique who made their brief mark on the mainstream through a close association with Lauryn Hill’s former outfit The Fugees. According to Raw Koncept, ‘Warning Shots’ will not be included on the eleven-track album, which is being touted rather boldly as a “female Illmatic”. It will mark the New Jersey MC’s first release since her 2000 debut Dirty Harriet, which is widely regarded as a classic. Watch this space for more news. MP3 after the jump.
Filed under: news, trouser press | Tags: black tambourine, charlotte richardson andrews, pam berry
Black Tambourine
Black Tambourine
[Slumberland; March 29]
Hard to believe that early ’90s shoegaze/twee-pop outfit Black Tambourine never released a proper album. Formed in 1989 as a side project by members of Whorl and Velocity Girl, they lasted a mere two years yet somehow remain among the most celebrated progenitors of American indie-pop. They were, after all, one of legendary label Slumberland’s first signings (an act of brilliant self-serving by band member Mike Schulman, who also co-founded the label). This new collection of odds and ends was overseen by Black Tambourine singer Pam Berry, a founder member of the still-going-strong Chick Factor zine, and features all of the band’s established catalogue plus six unheard songs. From the vaults come two unheard demos, along with four songs recorded by the band especially for this definitive release. Two are original numbers the band would play live back in the day but never had a chance to record, and the others are covers: Buddy Holly’s ‘Heartbeat’ and Suicide’s ‘Dream Baby Dream’. Available digitally and in a deluxe 12″ gatefold vinyl package.
Filed under: live, review | Tags: charlotte richardson andrews, dum dum girls, i will be, live at madame jojos, veronica falls, yuck
Dum Dum Girls / Veronica Falls / Yuck
Madame Jojo’s, London ••••
March 2, 2010
Queues all the way down Brewer Street and particularly unhelpful door staff meant a lot of the hyper buzzed fans only got to catch the last yells of opening support act Yuck, who faded out with an enticing swansong of distortion guitar wails. Veronica Falls followed up with a set of consistently lovely songs that have progressively stolen a substantial number of hearts over the past year. The shoegaze pop of ‘Stephen’ was dreamy enough to sway unabashedly to, while ‘Beachy Head’ rang out with romantic thrash. One of the capital’s most exciting homegrown outfits, they proved to be a well-selected warm-up for the US headliners whose appearance was the last, love-letter punctuation on a week of gigs across the capital, a doubly special affair since it marked the band’s UK debut.
Filed under: news, trouser press | Tags: charlotte richardson andrews, gina birch, the raincoats
Influential post-punk outfit The Raincoats have taken inspiration from Bikini Kill’s recently opened archive blog and are calling for fans to contribute their own personal stories and reflections of the band. In case you need a reminder (!), The Raincoats were formed thirty years ago by Ana da Silva and Gina Birch who met as students at Hornsey College of Art, London. An evolving list of band members has included Palm Olive and Kate Korus from The Slits (and later The Mo-dettes), drummer Ingrid Weiss, Vicky Aspinall on violin and photographer/manager Shirley O’Loughlin. The band released five LPs, and went on to become much lauded inspirations for Kurt Cobain, Kim Gordon and the riot grrrl movement as a whole, beaming a blindingly great path through music’s wider, male-dominated annals.
Filed under: news, trouser press | Tags: charlotte richardson andrews, jen olive, warm robot
Jen Olive
Warm Robot
[Ape House; March 29]
Albuquerque resident Jen Olive has a number of self-released works out under other names, but has forgone comfortable anonymity to release this latest album via a recently inked deal with Ape House, the label owned by XTC’s Andy Partridge. The singer-songwriter was born in California but enjoyed a nomadic upbringing with her lounge singer mother and trombone playing father. A move to Albuquerque brought her directly into the arms of her father’s “crazy jazz family” (her uncle is the lead saxophonist for the Count Basie Orchestra), and the city itself played its own part in the conception of Warm Robot. Says Jen, “The depth and character of the place is in the old indigenous families, and you can’t help but be influenced by the culture. It’s very different, there’s not a lot of conventional Americana here.”
Filed under: news, trouser press | Tags: charlotte richardson andrews, stridulum EP, zola jesus
Zola Jesus
Stridulum EP
[Sacred Bones; March 8]
Presumably named after Giulio Paradisi’s 1979 sci-fi stinker, more commonly known as ‘The Visitor’, this EP is the latest despatch from prolific young songwriter Nika Rosa Danilova and, as the super-striking artwork indicates, it promises to step up the production values from last year’s wonderfully lo-fi The Spoils [review]. Opening track ‘Night’ has been making waves as a free download [here]. If it’s indicative of the EP as whole, we’re in for a sweet gothic treat.
Filed under: feature, interrupting yr broadcast | Tags: charlotte richardson andrews, dum dum girls, interview
This week marks the UK live debut of SoCal’s Dum Dum Girls, the solo project turned all-girl outfit fronted by Kristin Gundred – or Dee Dee as she’d prefer to be known – and “of course!” she’s excited to be hitting our shores, despite an earlier propensity for crippling stage fright. The moniker, which she adopted from the beginning of the Dum Dum Girls journey, is part of a semi-persona created to protect a rather shy individual from the on-display world of musicianship and ever-peering fandom. Her early online presence was marked by a desire to remain anonymous, and the very few pictures that surfaced made sure to obscure some of her face, a romantic, partial aloofness that gave her dreamy, lo-fi-ish punk a coveted, secretive aura.
Filed under: feature, interrupting yr broadcast | Tags: a badly broken code, charlotte richardson andrews, dessa, interview
If you didn’t catch Dessa’s song ‘Dixon’s Girl’ in our December batch of Free Music Friday giveaways, you are strongly urged to get on the case. Even better, though, would be hunting down a copy of her recently released debut album, A Badly Broken Code [review], which came out in January on independent hip hop label Rhymesayers. It’s a layered, searingly honest debut filled with the kind of poetic wordplay you’d expect to find in works of literature, which is really no surprise since Dessa is both a published author and slam poetry victor. She’s currently on tour in the US with fellow Doomtree crew member P.O.S., but spoke with us in between shows about everything from gender dynamics in hip hop and the growing pains that come with earning touring spurs, to her recent fascination with Brits winner Florence Welch and a desire to perform over here in the UK; an offer we simply shouldn’t refuse.
Filed under: album, review | Tags: charlotte richardson andrews, dum dum girls, i will be
Dum Dum Girls
I Will Be ••••
Sub Pop
Adopting their name in homage to the Iggy Pop number ‘Dum Dum Boys’ and The Vaselines’ album Dum-Dum, this SoCal solo project turned all-girl band is the brainchild of one Kristin Gundred, or Dee Dee as she now likes to be known. A home-recorded CD-R, released on her own label Zoo Music, led to a 7″ on HoZac and the eponymous 12″ EP on Captured Tracks that Wears The Trousers has been savouring aplenty while awaiting this salivated-over full-length. Early hype over her mysterious, out-of-nowhere Myspace songs was exacerbated by a shyness that meant Dee Dee obscured her face with masks and carefully positioned vinyl in the few photos that surfaced. The front cover image of her mother as a young woman is both a sweet tribute and a reminder of Dee Dee’s introvert tendencies, the warm tones and subtle retro touches of the photo pointing perfectly towards the nostalgic influences at work on the album.
Filed under: album, review | Tags: a badly broken code, charlotte richardson andrews, dessa
Dessa
A Badly Broken Code ••••
Rhymesayers
Dessa, born Margret Wander, is the only female member of Minneapolis hip hop collective Doomtree, though as she’s pointed out recently, she’d rather be your favourite MC than your favourite female MC. A solo album has been long overdue, though the delay is no surprise considering her schedule; she teaches music at a local college, sings in an “almost all-girl a cappella group” The Boy Sopranos and has published poetry in her tome Spiral Bound. But with production help from various Doomtree siblings, Big Jess of Unknown Prophets, a touch of violin from Pink’s recent tour mate Jessy Greene and some vocal additions from Lupe Fiasco collaborator and fellow Minnapolis native Mathew Santos, A Badly Broken Code was born. Terrific code-encrypted sleeve art to puzzle over comes from MK Larada, accompanied by a full book of lyrics, completing a package created with love, thought and dedicated artistry.
