RiotGrrrl Day Playlist!

Today is the RiotGrrrl Day! Why the 9th of April? Because last year, the Major of Boston, Mark Walsh, honored and recognized the great Kathleen Hanna's works towards music and feminism, with the idea to promote riot grrrl culture in his own city. A much welcomed celebration we obviously couldn't miss. So, in order to celebrate, we have created a playlist with female bands from the last four decades. The idea is try to bring you a diverse and significant, in terms of riotgrrrl/feminist movement (knowing it's impossible to include all of them of course, share your favourites with us!). A fantastic excuse to enjoy and celebrate much loved music played, sung and written by women! Girls to the front!

Spanish Indie 17: suggesting the best national acts

Time for more of the best bands coming from Spain, enjoy!

Santa Rita. Formed in 2008, this all-female quartet hailing from Barcelona started their career by playing a lot live, including a slot at Primavera Sound Festival, or supporting Juliette Lewis. In early 2011, they released their debut S/T EP and, after a change in their line-up, in March 2013 came out "High On the Seas", first album on Aloud Music. Nine fire-powered pills of indie-rock, channeling the 90s spirit, fierce, passionate, cohesive and fuelled by rousing guitars and a tone of attitude. A lot of promise from a real band offering a heavyweight debut. 

Puzzles y Dragones. Discos de Kirlian again, they're on a pluperfect pop roll. Daniel de la Mancha (Autofans, Atrapado en el Tiempo, El Diablo Adolescente) gathered with three members of Alborotador Gomasio, and after seven months of devoted recording, here comes their debut 7" EP "Somos Puzzles y Dragones". Four tunes (five on its digital version), some reworks from Dani's previous bands and some new, this is a haunting little collection of indiepop gems in the vein of the best British pop from the 90s. Songs so good that seem to have been waiting for you for decades, ready to embrace and never let you go.
Wild Balbina. Coming from Vigo, the trio formed in 2010 when Antía Figueiras and Marta González decided to move on from their initial covers combo to a real band after recruiting V. Zapata. A lot of local exposure live followed until 2012, with their only release to date, the EP "Eat Tacos", out on Elefant Records. Self-defined as wild teen-punk-surf, the four tunes are a stunning blend of styles recalling bands like Bleached, Veronica Falls, Helen Love or The Shop Assistants. Besides their killer songs, the link with the riot grrrl movement is obvious, as they also run the feminist-cultural fanzine Typical Girls, offering another reason to keep this name on your agendas. More soon please!  

The Indie Anthology 31: essential songs

Back to the Indie Anthology, this time... let's get a bit "politically charged". Yeah, after watching "The Punk Singer" it was bound to happen (review of the documentary coming soon).

Song: Hot Topic
Artist: Le Tigre
Year: 1999

I have always had an issue with Kathleen Hanna. I admire her so much and tried so many times to get into her music, but in all honesty, I have never been able to be engaged by her albums fully. I guess straightforward punk (Bikini Kill) and electronic pop (Le Tigre) are just not my genres. With some explosive exceptions, "TKO", "Deceptacon", "Keep On Living", and in a very special way, "Hot Topic". A ridiculously catchy bubblegum pop tune that is also a celebration of mostly female/feminist icons. Gertrude Stein, Billie Jean King, Nina Simone, Sleater-Kinney, The Slits, Joan Jett, and a long, never-ending etc., plus the (I love them) following lines:

So many roads and so much opinion
So much shit to give in, give in to
So many rules and so much opinion
So much bullshit but we won't give in

Stop, we won't stop
Don't you stop
I can't live if you stop 

Can pop be meaningful and joyful? Here's one of the best examples I know, an indie mantra of real heroes. Now tell me: do you think there's any space for all the Lady Gagas, Miley Cyrus, Rihannas and all the utter crap we have today pestering music industry here? NO WAY. From a music level, that's why I was so eager to recommend his latest project, The Julie Ruin, finally an album I really enjoy as a whole. And from another, more vindicating perspective, that's why I'm so willing to celebrate Kathlenn Hanna is back, hopefully to (please do it) kick some asses and shake some minds.

Discoverer 74: new indie findings

Another Sunday full of amazing new indie proposals for you ears only, enjoy !

The Julie Ruin. We start with a NYC quintet formed in 2010 and leaded by Kathleen Hanna, riot grrrl myth, feminist activist and former lead singer of the seminal bands of like Bikini Kill and Le Tigre. As a matter of fact, Hanna released a solo album entitled the Julie Ruin in 1998, but until 2010 the project didn't acquire its final, full band incarnation, with a first performance arriving that December. In 2012, they released the song "Girls Like Us, and the debut album, "Run Fast" is out since September. As expected, the album is fire and fun, vital and tough. The B-52 fuelled by the punk sharpness and wisdom of a 20 years spanning and honest career. Welcome back, Kathleen, we needed you!


The Meaning of Life. Still in NYC to meet a Brooklyn-based trio, born through an ad in 2012 and creating their only release to date, "Play Fuego" EP, during that summer, preceded by the advance single "Laura V.". The release, that you can still grab (name your price) at their bandcamp is an exciting blend of dream pop with the more melodic version of shoegaze, where the layers of reverb and noise doesn't attempt to bury the thrilling vocals of Marta DeLeon, which imo recalls to my beloved Beth Orton, but instead propelling her to wide, cinematic, and haunting spaces.

Trick Mammoth. Only two songs, but I already know I have found a band to love (thanks to the great Just Music that I Like blog for the recommendation). Hailing from Dunedin, New Zealand, they formed in 2012, and after some late-year demos, the trio of Adrian Ng, Millie Lovelock and Sam Valentine recorded their first full album in mid July of 2013, which is entitled "Floristry" and will be out in late November via Fishrider Records but... only in NZ! We Europeans will have to wait until February 2014 through Occultation Recordings! That's unfair, that's a tragedy! Judging by the mind blowing first single "Delphine (With a Purpose)/Pinker Sea" available at their bandcamp the wait is going to be excruciating... Immediate but intriguing indiepop, delicate (Millie's voice is disarming) and uplifting. Love at first hear. Want the record now!
  

"Meek's Cutoff", feminine, conceptual, real western

Meek's Cutoff

I watched the film during the first Festival Internacional de Cinema d'Autor held in Barcelona (where it received the Public Award after the open balloting), because despite the movie has been premiered around the world.... but around the world excludes Spain (that doesn't have to do much with piracy, don't you think movie distributors and theaters? why are we forced to watch only commercial crap every single week?)

I was eager to see it because her director, Kelly Reichardt, is responsible of one of the most compelling and brilliant films I have ever seen (something that I couldn't watch on Spanish theaters either), "Wendy and Lucy". A film I can't praise enough.

Movie critics have defined "Meek's Cutoff" as a "feminist western". Is quite easy to see why, but that definition constrains a film that is, at least at the conceptual level, amazingly rich. A history lesson of the United States of America in less than 2 hours. And a lesson of commitment towards cinema as an instrument to say things, to make you think and not just to entertain you. The traditional (orthodox) western, at least to my understanding, was reductionist to the extreme. We had the stereotypical cowboy, always a white male, with supposed virtues like his loneliness and a propensity towards violence, transformed into a seek for justice (easy to see North-american foreign policy still confounds justice with vengeance). Overall, a simple dichotomy between the hero, the cowboy, and the Indian, the villain, creating the false grandeur of that period of history, the colonization of the States.

But instead, in this in transit, domestic western, Reichardt gives us a different perspective. Three couples, guided by a supposedly expert cowboy named Meek towards a promised land crossing the plains of Oregon. But the trip is exhausting, stark, harsh and emotionally draining. They get lost (how many times have you seen the hero getting lost on a western before?, and they desperately need water to survive. As the movie develops, the power on the group shifts towards an anonymous heroin (brilliantly performed by Michelle Williams again) clashing with Meek (traditional macho role) and because of their relationship with "the Other" (won't spoil the film), the other main element of the film, which is the personification of fear.

Reichardt's revisionist take on the western will stimulate more debate than the story itself. Intellectually, or artistically, is an outstanding film, challenging and rich despite, on the surface, simple story. But there are two major concerns that provokes the feeling "'Meek's Cutoff"' is missing something. One is not the slow pace -doesn't help either- but is related to it. In the decision of being as realistic as possible, there's a clear unrealistic fact (don't want to spoil anything) regarding "the Other", that although being said previously on the film, soon is forgotten in order to justify what comes -overlong- after. But even more relevant than that, is the heart of the movie, the most amazing thing on "Wendy and Lucy" that is lacking here. Doesn't compel you or grab you, there's no emotional connection with the characters and that kills the movie, in my opinion. It's the story of a small group trying to survive on extreme and desperate conditions, but the director prefers to win the battle of ideas than the battle of emotions in Meek's Cutoff.

A film of suggestion, conceptually brilliant and risky, but that demands too much from the spectator for the unsatisfactory reward it offers.

SCORE: 6,25/10