Another all-female group, Pillow Queens come from Dublin. They also happen to be homosexual, and this fact is important to appreciate the meaning of their song Gay Girls.
In the song they sing about a girl growing up in a traditional catholic background while coming to terms with her homosexuality. It's all depicted in a sort of inner consciousness stream, with thoughts, phrases, and names mingling. It is subtle and clever.
The music opens with a melancholic and intimate tone, but evolves towards an anthemic finale. It's a great Indie song.
The video for the song gives another hint about the wider scope of the song: in it, a child finds comfort and solace from fraught family dynamics in friendship. At the same time, the video plays with the tropes of a catholic upbringing (Confirmation dresses, the Eucharist): it is defiant and impudent. And somehow, it seems an apposite commentary on the current attitudes in the Republic of Ireland: a country that, after a referendum that approved Equal Marriage, sees itself as being open and socially progressive.
One among other all-female rock bands, Powpig come from Limerick in Ireland, and it is astonishing they are barely out of school.
Despite their young age, they demonstrate great aptitude at using some of the canons of pop music in original and inventive ways. And, together with this aptitude, they also display an 'in your face' attitude: they don't seem to care what you and I may think of them, they will keep doing their own thing and have fun while doing it.
Their sound and attitude reminds me of another all-female band, the Slits, but this might be a lazy and ungenerous comparison: Powpig may have many influences, but they seem intent in creating their own niche.
I saw Powpig play live this year: they supported Band Girl and opened their gigs in Dublin this November. On stage they displayed great competence and mastery: the drummer is particularly good, while all the other members swapped instruments from song to song, showing a further interesting side to the band.
Mayday is a particularly good song, with jangling guitars, and a nice change of tempo by the end of the song. Like many good pop songs, it feels as if it was just coming naturally on the spot, and all the sophistication that keeps it flowing is hidden from view. In mastering the art of making something sophisticated and clever sound simple and easy, Powpig seems to follow on the path of other great pop-groups like Orange Juice and Aztec Camera.
They have not yet released a full album, although some of the songs they played in Dublin indicate they are producing solid songs for further outputs.
Drahla are, for wanting of a better word, a post-punk band.
Many other bands seem to get inspiration from that period between the end of the 70s and the early 80s when the ethos of punk and technological innovations allowed many bands space to experiment and reach new audiences. I think that the ethos and sound of post-punk is still relevant today, so I welcome bands like Drahla.
Twelve Divisions of the Day is a good example of the dark unsettling undertone of many of Drahla's songs from their 2019 album Useless Coordinates. I could have indeed chosen almost any other song from their album as an exemplar of Drahla's mastery, e.g. Stimulus for Living, or Pyramid Estate: it is a very solid album.
The heavy bass lines may remind of Joy Division and Siouxsie and the Banshees, but the uneven, angular structures of the song, with the introduction of a saxophone to provide further sharpness, make their sound interesting. And it's a sound that it still relevant in conveying and emphasising universal, and yet very topical, feelings of alienation and estrangement.
I don't usually have much time for Hip Hop, at least in its current debased form, but Dublin rapper Kojaque somehow caught my attention.
For one thing, there seems to be honesty and integrity in his work. Flu shot is a good example, with Kojaque singing about being "tired of shopping at Aldi", but the line that cracks me everytime is the one where refers to dealing with Major Labels, and he says that he's "one step ahead of the Majors, I fuck myself in my sleep". You see, Kojaque runs his onw record label, thanks to a grant from a young entepreneurship scheme.
Apart from the clever self-mockery, what drives me to Kojaque is his music: he loves good old jazz, as demonstrated by his signing of a band like Five to Two, and has used samples from artists like Sun Ra in his songs. His jazz influences are also evident in the way he uses them in arranging his songs live. Flu Shot is a good example of how this passion for jazz can be channeled into a good Hip Hop song.
The other notable thing about singl Flu Shot is the video that went with it, a very good production, at times hilarious. So, well done Kojaque for your passion in good music and all that can be channelled through music.
