Milly Toomey better known as GIRLI (she’s clearly a fan of the capital letters unlike yesterday’s band deep tan) has over the years been getting better and better. From the Super Mario pop of So You Think You Can F*ck With Me Do Ya? and the M.I.A vs early Charli XCX vs Shampoo chants of ASBoys in 2015 through to the 2017’s fast-paced Hot Mess up to the here and now with her best yet - Deal With It – a bona fide banger. Today she has released a video for the song - a jam that reminds me a little bit of the exuberant I Love It by Icona Pop – which is in all respects a very good thing. GIRLI explains Deal With It as follows “It is about embracing your weirdness and telling anyone who judges or questions your individuality to get over it. It’s about refusing to change who you are for other people and instead of saying that it’s their problem if they’re offended by who you are, not yours.” It’s a sentiment that over the last few years a lot of pop musicians have been relaying as part of their message. It’s one that I fully support – after all it’s the weird bits of us that make us interesting and exciting. However, there’s a caveat here and I do wish that more pop people would add this caveat. Refusing to change who you are for other people is fine, most of the time. But there’s a line. For example, if you’re a mass murderer or rapist, quite a few people are going to be pretty offended / hurt by this, and it might be time to reconsider who you are and instigate some changes. Or turn yourself in to the police and let them deal with it. However, in most cases ‘weirdness’ is just others not being able to relate to you on some much less impactful level and if for example that means that means that someone else can’t handle you dying your hair pink and bouncing around to electropop (whatever age / gender / race etc you are) then that really is their problem not yours. Now, who wants to dance frantically around their house / on the street to this? Because Deal With It is a frantic bop of the highest order. Girli’s 9 track album Odd One Out is released on the 5th of April and she’s doing a huge tour of Britain (although there’s only 1 Scottish and 1 Welsh date) at the same time to promote it. Go and celebrate your inner (or outer) weirdness with her, whoever you are. GIRLI - Deal With It (Video)
Whilst I’m not particularly a grammar pedant or vocabulary fascist (anyone reading the catalogue of errors that is this blog should be able to tell this) one thing that does get my back up a little is the growing fashion for not using capital letters where capital letters should be used. I blame the iPhone and eBay for this. Now the disease has spread to bands. So, when I first came across new London group deep tan I almost passed them by simply because of their refusal to use a capital D and T. Harsh I know, but you have to use some sort of filter to keep things manageable when there's so much music out there. This would have been a shame, because deep tan's debut single air is rather good. A neat yet uneasy mix of French Pop, gothy drums and darker atmospherics that subtly hint at the likes of mid 80’s Tears For Fears dancing in the shadows with Editors, White Lies, Warpaint and Interpol, it’s an excellent start. There's even a touch of The XX's early minimalism in there. And unlike the normal method of releasing straight to Spotify, Apple Music and You Tube deep tan keep it old school and have just thrown the track up on Soundcloud. Their Facebook tells us that they make ‘soothing grooves earth shattering moves’ and that they’ve been playing a number of gigs in and around London, which for now is enough to know. Get acquainted with the song as we keep an eye and ear out for more from this promising bunch. deep tan - air
A couple of weeks ago Matt Parsons, the Chief Executive of digital music distribution company Ditto Music caused a minor storm on the internet by tweeting: “13 years of Ditto, and Lee and I still work 12+ hours a day, 7 days a week, check our emails at 4am and help our clients on evenings and weekends. No days off. Every spare minute is an opportunity. If you can’t do that basic thing….go work at a major label.” Whilst Parson’s clients might appreciate his levels of dedication and he might love his job to the point that he’s prepared to work this way, I’m not sure if, as a Chief Executive of a company with a leadership role, this is a responsible message to give out. Particularly to younger people on Twitter trying to get into the music industry who might read the tweet and think that this is how you have to work. Wouldn’t most people agree that working 7 days a week, with no days off, for 12+ hours a day mean that you’re probably dedicating too much time to work and missing out on appreciating the other aspects of life that really only come by taking a break? And also, would most people not agree that advocating working such long hours doesn’t take into account the wider impacts it can have? There are many studies that show that people who work long hours experience numerous mental, physical and social effects – some which will only become apparent later in life? Is ‘success’ (and many people judge ‘success’ as wealth earnt) really that important? And if it is, is there another way? It seems that Lauran Hibberd has got the answer although, as with a number of her songs, there’s definitely a large element of comedic tongue-in-cheek to her solution. Just get yourself a Sugardaddy folks. No more working seven days a week. “Stay home and relax, don’t worry about the money in the bank, 'cos I’ve got stacks around the house,” she sings of her assumedly fictional boyfriend in waiting with an income that knows no bounds. There’s a definite hint of a 90’s Britpop sound to the song; Sugardaddy would sit very comfortably on Sleeper’s Smart or The It Girl Albums as it bounds along with Lauran asking: “Would you like to be my Sugardaddy? I’m tired of working seven days a week.” Brash and playful, it’s another off the wall tune from the Isle of Wight’s queen of indie.
The quality pop from Norway just keeps on coming. Not content with giving us the likes of Sigrid, Aurora, Dagny, Anna of the North, Amanda Tenfjord and Halie, here’s the latest new Nordic queen on the block. Her name is Iris and like all good pop stars she’s mononymous and doesn’t have a surname. Well she does, but nobody cares about that. When we talk of Adele nobody calls her Adele Adkins do they? I’m beginning to wonder if there’s some sort of pop star birthing machine in Bergen, Norway, because like Sigrid and like Halie, Iris comes from there. However, as Ian Brown of the Stone Roses once famously said: “It’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re at,” and with her debut single From Inside A Car Iris immediately proves she’s at a very good place musically; in this case Paris. For From Inside A Car is a gorgeously low-key piece of porcelain pop with a really pretty melody and breathy hooky chorus that was written after Iris had spent a month alone in the romantic French city. Iris recorded the track with producer Askjell Solstrand who has worked with the likes of Sigrid and Aurora so there’s some good pedigree here. Iris herself also comes with a good history, having worked on a bunch of other projects in Norway. However, with dates at By:Larm festival in Oslo and Brighton’s Great Escape already pencilled in for 2019, you can expect to hear a lot more from her as a solo artist as the year develops. A debut EP is scheduled for Spring.
