riot grrrl Archives - Various Small Flames https://varioussmallflames.co.uk/tag/riot-grrrl/ New and independent music Mon, 13 Jun 2016 18:46:15 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://i0.wp.com/varioussmallflames.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/cropped-finalwhite-e1490809629909-1.jpg?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 riot grrrl Archives - Various Small Flames https://varioussmallflames.co.uk/tag/riot-grrrl/ 32 32 88787050 Brenda’s Friend – House Down https://varioussmallflames.co.uk/2016/06/13/brendas-friend-house/ Mon, 13 Jun 2016 18:35:46 +0000 http://www.wakethedeaf.co.uk/?p=9459 You might recognise Erin Tobey from her album Middlemaze, a release we described as “all echoey drums and cool-as-heck snaky guitars”. Well, thanks to a fair dose of mutual appreciation and respect,  Tobey last year teamed with fellow Bloomington songwriter Amy Oelsner (AKA Amy O) to form Brenda’s Friend. The project, which the duo hope to use as an outlet for their more abstract writing, cannot quite be pinned within any one genre, traversing a gamut of musical variations to include […]

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]]> You might recognise Erin Tobey from her album Middlemaze, a release we described as “all echoey drums and cool-as-heck snaky guitars”. Well, thanks to a fair dose of mutual appreciation and respect,  Tobey last year teamed with fellow Bloomington songwriter Amy Oelsner (AKA Amy O) to form Brenda’s Friend. The project, which the duo hope to use as an outlet for their more abstract writing, cannot quite be pinned within any one genre, traversing a gamut of musical variations to include (as the press release describes) “sonorous folk rock, distorted doo-wop, the melodic richness of Talulah Gosh’s early indie-pop and a Wire-like post-punk stomp”.

Following up 2015’s Under the Shrub, Brenda’s Friend are back with a new six-song release, House Down. The album opens with the title track, a song which begins with a clear kick-drum thump but soon descends (or ascends) into an intricate stack of sound and lyrics. The spine of percussion remains throughout, a lifeline tied around the listeners ear as they delve into the kaleidoscopic shifting of vocals and instrumentation. ‘Sponge’ strips things back, the vocals now superimposed for emphasis, the lyrics ranging from pre-teen demands (“I want it! / I need it!”) to weird allegorical verses:

“I don’t want to stay at the bottom of that pond
I don’t want to lick up all that scum
don’t want to float with the salient sponge
take a breath, say hello to the sun”

‘Who Who’ is a track heavy in reverb, sitting between a bluesy rock and the riot grrrl sound of the 90s. Oelsner and Tobey join together to give the vocals a mantra-like quality, the collaborative casting of some swaggering, self-assured spell. ‘Pas De Deux’ is far gentler, the vocals soft and fine though cut with slight suggestions of something stranger, the lyrics abstract and instrumentation pulsing and buzzing in odd repetitions, as though accelerating toward some unclear conclusion.

“Oh I made a mess and cleaned it up
then the sky opened wide, it was terrible.
Oh I, melting candles underfoot
But your guard was so hard you laughed at the air
burned your own hair”

‘Horoscope’ is short and off-kilter, packed with a high-school blend of confidence and confusion (“stuck in the middle of my horoscope / its set to wait all month”), like the soundtrack of the best 90s kids TV show you’ve never seen, while closer ‘Navy Beach’ is a reckless garage rock hit to be played in dive bars packed out by rough heads on shore leave.

House Down is out now and you can buy it from the Brenda’s Friend Bandcamp page, including on limited-edition cassette via Winspear Records. Also, be sure to check out the Amy O and Erin Tobey Bandcamp pages.0007524099_10

Album art by Janelle Beasley

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