When Girls Names initially emerged, the Belfast band were pegged as an indie pop outfit.
Sure, their glistening guitar lines and sighing harmonies were allied to the C86 sound, but there was a darkness, a discomfort which refused to settle.
Since then, the band have evolved in powerful new directions. New album 'Arms Around a Vision' is due to be released on October 2nd, with the material displaying a dark, experimental edge.
Frontman Cathal Cully explains: "We look to Europe for inspiration. For romance. For the idea of a better life."
It's certainly a European sounding record. Settling down to name five albums as their Foundations, Girls Names take Clash on a trip across the continent.
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Iggy Pop – 'The Idiot'
There are records and pieces of music that remind you of a certain place, time or a person in your life, be those memories good or bad. The Idiot really helped me through a rough spot a few years back, and it still is! I could have picked any of the Bowie/Iggy Berlin era LPs, but I had to go for this.
In part, it's the allure of that sleeve. Iggy's eyes are looking at you, make no mistake. It's so bittersweet. I love how this is the breeding ground document for Bowie to test out and to steal all of Kraftwerk and Neu!'s ideas, marry them with his down-tempo, sleaze-grooves and have them filtered through Iggy's warped, sexual but definitely real fantasies – 'Sister Midnight', 'Nightclubbing', 'Tiny Girls' et al.
I was floored the first time I heard this original version of 'China Girl'. It's such an intelligent piece of music and beautifully arranged. It's moving in this context to the point of tears. It's such a sleazy, provocative record – real dark room kind of stuff, but it's also a record that is beautifully humble and heartbreakingly vulnerable. 'Mass Production', the closer, serves this notion. And, for me, the whole LP's message nakedly reduces us men down to being the idiots that we are and places women high on a pedestal (rightly deserved!). It's masochism. It's also pure love.
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The Pop Group – 'Y'
Myself and Phil are big big Birthday Party heads, but he actually never listened to The Pop Group until last year. I would always say to him he'd love them as they were the main band who are directly responsible for the nihilism that ensued from the latter day Birthday Party records. The attack of Mark Stewart's vocals and the sheer derangement of the spiky guitar playing were the things that initially sucked me into this record and The Pop Group. This album is so brilliant. 'Savage Sea'! Savage fucking Sea! 'Snow Girl'! Wow. I'm looking through the track listing and it's all gold.
Not taking away from the band's own lunatic constructions but Dennis Bovell's dub production is what makes this album so genius and otherworldly. It's got everything in there: punk, funk, no wave, disco grooves, Stockhausen concrete, all tied together with massive dub vibes. I definitely was playing this a lot in the lead up to going into the studio for this new record. Looking back now, I think that's why there's so much dissonant piano and scratchy violins on our record.
They played Primavera in 2012 when we were also playing and they were the one band I couldn't miss. I dragged Stephen from Tough Love and he had an epiphany! They were that good. They put so many bands to shame that weekend. You could see they still had it – and more importantly meant it more than ever.
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Malaria! – 'Complied 1981-1984'
This is a big record from my formative post punk loving years in my early 20s. Hearing Malaria! for the first time was a revelation. It was so exotic sounding – these bold Teutonic sounding women playing a very mechanical and masculine mix of industrial, electronica, punk, no wave and experimental EBM. Their music is also very feminine and erotic and brought that sensuality home to me that only women possess, and how empowering and strong it makes them. And it's so defiant sounding. Yet Malaria! are so elegant – so decadent -the way Europe and it's people are.
When I visit Berlin, in my mind it's the sound of this Berlin I am entering into – that of Neubauten, Malaria!, Liaisons Dangereuses and the last Birthday Party EPs. The first record of theirs that I got my hands on was the 'New York Passage' 12" and I played it to death. What a sleeve! I poured over that, they just looked so beautiful and cool as fuck. A real eye opener… I wanted to be with them – hang out with them but also be them. Role models irrelevant of gender.
Not that I DJ much any more, (I'm always open to offers) but 'Kaltes Klares Wasser', 'You You' or 'Geld' are always staples.
Magazine – 'Secondhand Daylight'
I've been strategically and stealthily seeping the subtle nuances and intelligence of Magazine into the blood of Girls Names the last year and a half. Our publisher is on to me though! She doesn't realise it yet but Claire Miskimmin's bass lines are so good on our new record, they're straight up contending in a league with Barry Adamson. I bought a lyric book of Howard Devoto's so I could study the words that he half sings. I became enamoured by his delivery. Some of the lines on the surface are so banal and others very abstract – but it's his out and out conviction and belief that makes it all tie together.
I knew this was something I had to do on our new record. The musical arrangements are such a step up for us I had to put the huge pressure on myself to deliver lyrically and to perform. Again this is a bit of a perverse record – and full of sexual intent, vulnerability and scorn. 'Permafrost' sums this up. Maybe it's the renounced Catholic in me hearing all this! Ha! But there is, at times, something very playful going on with Magazine. Something decadent also.
It's hard to put your finger on it. That's why I love them and this record. They're a bit cerebral and elitist at times, but possibly as they're from the North you just know you'd have the best craic with them over a beer or two.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – 'From Her To Eternity'
How do you pick a sole Nick Cave album? In a beautifully open and drunken conversation I told my ex that I'd paradoxically want to have 'Your Funeral My Trial' played both at my wedding and funeral. 'Let Love In' is the mantra I tell myself now but 'From Her To Eternity' is the one that started it all for me.
Again there's that sleeve. Has anyone looked as transfixed, deranged and unsettling, but also so beautiful on the cover of a record? After the dust settles on the devilment of 'Avalanche', Adamson rears his ugly fingers again with that pulsing, propelling, throbbing bass that was the sound of the Bad Seeds for so many years.
The whole record is so intense. It's not good for people of nervous dispositions. It can really tip you over the edge on the wrong day. Blixa Bargeld's guitar/not guitar has definitely been a massive influence on Phil and myself for quite a few songs on the new record. I kept referring Dan Rejmer, who mixed our new LP, to this record and title track in particular. Not to make it sound like it, but to give him the idea to try and capture that uneasy, intangible murky, ugly feeling proceeding over everything.
And that's exactly what I hear when I listen to this record. You don't listen to it, but you taste it and you smell the stench of it. It's wonderfully beautiful.
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'Arms Around A Vision' will be released on October 2nd.
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