Singles That Mingle

With Captain Stavros

 

Frontier Ruckus – I’m Not The Boy

On The Northern Line out now via Loose Music Records

Nonchalance purpose in this tune.

 

Logic1000 – Promises

Mother Out March 22 Via Therapy/Because Music

Reminds me of the cool coffee lounges we hung out in before even working up the courage to drink coffee.

 

Mannequin Pussy – Nothing Like

I Got Heaven Out March 1 Via Epitaph Records

Easing back on psychadelia and ramping up the pop, how do you feel about it?

 

Dea Matrona – Stuck On You

For Your Sins Out May 3 

Buskering on the cold streets and heating up the seats, this trio turned duo, has been pushing for their debut album release for a hot minute now.

 

Friko – Get Numb To It!

Where We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here Out Now Via ATO Records

Great tune to roll into warmer weather with.

 

Grandaddy – Long As I’m Not The One

Blu Wave Out Now Via Dangerbird Records

All the elements you’ve enjoyed about Grandaddy over the years with a new western twang, yeehaw.

 

Gary Landry Jones – Corn Mine

Hey Gary, Hey Dawn Out April 5 Via Sacred Bones

What is there to say about Corn Mine that hasn’t already been said? It’s a….poppin tune.

 

Chanel Beads – Idea June

Your Day Will Come Out April 19 Via Jagjagwuar

Brief but leaves an impression.

 

Waxahatchee – Bored

Tigers Blood Out March 22 Via Anti-Records

Won’t get bored of this tune anytime soon.

 

Lloyd Wayne – Bird Beyond

The piano opening hooked us but the song continues to build from there, would recommend.

 

Metz – 99

Up On Gravity Hill Out April 12 Via Sub Pop

It’s a song that sounds like two genres crashed into each other at a junction. It’s cool though, they’re friends now.

 

VR Sex – Inanimate Love

Hard Copy Out March 22 Via Dais Records

Wait for it to kick in, you won’t be disappointed.

 

Idles – Grace

TANGK Out Now Via Partisan Records

Track’s got a real soft touch, sneaks up on ya.

 

Hermanos Gutiérrez - Sonido Cósmico

Sonido Cósmico Out May 14 Via Easy Eye Sounds

Sonic psyche sounds.

Mannequin Pussy

The Windmill, London

Words & Pics by Captain Stavros

 

 

In October of this year, Mannequin Pussy posted that a new album, I Got Heaven, would be released in March on their label, Romantic Records.  Heralding the release, a string of North American and European tour dates were announced and are currently being fulfilled.  Missing both their previous stops in London, ‘third time lucky’ would become more than just a mere platitude, it would become a reality.  Our reality.  Sneaking in, just under the wire, we blag our way into night two of two sold out shows for the hardest working band from Philadelphia.

The Windmill’s a standalone pub, in more ways than one.  It lies at the end of a quiet street, in between pools of light about a 20-minute walk from the station (if you’re hoofing it), that you’d never find if you weren’t looking for it.  Known for breaking the best up-and-coming bands (many of which campaigned for funding to keep the lights on during the pandemic, we’re looking at you, Goat Girl), tonight would be no exception.

Gaining and losing members since the band’s foundation, Mannequin Pussy would be playing with five of a like-minded kind this evening.  Through the years, the band would make Rolling Stone’s and Pitchfork’s ‘Best New Music’ and, over the years, go on to release four studio albums alongside four EPs.  Most recently, the band bought back their masters, and founded a label, their trending trajectory clearly on the ascent, with a focus on treating artists (and everyone in between) on it fairly.  Has their slow burn success story found an audience and a must-see live-show that’d match pace?  Well, on that chilly November evening in Brixton, they’d fire 16 shots into the audience, and each of them would hit the mark.

The crowd was made up of everyone; young, old, posh, rough sleepers, humanoids both foreign and domestic.  There was even one woman on crutches who was allowed to keep them behind the bar for the duration of the gig.  The stage, more of an exiled wizard’s lair with tinsel curtains and broken records stapled to the ceiling than a raised performance platform, was soon occupied.  The first thing we noticed was that everyone’s fingernails were vibrantly decorated, but ground down for optimal playing performance, admittedly a weird thing to notice.  Clothing?  Sheer’s the name of the game, or boiler suit delights.

The set opens with ‘Sometimes’, followed by ‘I Got Heaven’ (Marissa half bark/breathes like a pervert throughout it into the mic) from the soon to be released album.  Both will be (and were) full bodied instant hits; a ballsy move setting the tone of the evening.  Fortune does favour the bold, and there would be no shortage of boldness tonight.  Two unheard new cuts were also dropped from the forthcoming album, ‘Of Her’ and ‘Aching’.

The gig was somewhere between a crippling anxiety attack (due in part to a lack of personal space that nobody seemed to mind, and being penned in by a teetering 30 kilo speaker atop a two-meter-tall stand that ALSO nobody seemed to mind) and a jolt one’d get from licking a 9v battery.  Mannequin Pussy played their way through their set the way a local might rip along with zeal down the winding roads of the Dolomites in the dark after a half bottle of fortified Lambrusco, with unheeded confidence.  It was a complex and heady cocktail of mellow, hard, funky, and compelling stoner pysche.

Set highlights everyone got behind were ‘Drunk II’, ‘Control’, ‘Perfect’, ‘Everything’, and the finale ‘Pigs is Pigs’, which was bookended by Marrisa’s “WE DON’T DO ENCORES” and Colins’ feelings about the cops, of which, both statements had their merits.  Shortly before the set came to a close, Marissa pauses, comes to the edge of the stage, and hoarsely speaks in the mic, “you might have come here alone, but you are not alone in this room”.  Everyone, most of all the band, at The Windmill is soaked from head to toe in sweat.  The crowd’s general appearance thanks to the smearing of eyeshadow, mascara and damp hair has taken on the appearance of a gothic water colour phantom.  Keep an eye out for future tour dates, you won’t walk away dry or disappointed.