King Tuff Reviews The Singles

Sub Popper on MNEK, Girl Band and more…

King Tuff is our guest reviewer for this week’s new batch of singles releases. The Sub Pop-signed garage-rocker-gone-spooked-by-T-Rex, with previous in acts like Happy Birthday and Witch, has a new solo LP coming later in September, ‘Black Moon Spell’. Recording sessions were, apparently, marked by several odd phenomena: mysterious lights, haunted microphones, evilness manifesting itself in coffee cups. You know, the usual.

Anyway, the man behind the Tuff-ness, Kyle Thomas, has passed us his thoughts on a bunch of new tracks, which you can read below – right after you check out the title cut from his forthcoming long-play collection, due to arrive on September 22nd.

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Ghost Culture – ‘Arms’

“This video has some cool claymation in it, like maybe what Gumby’s nightmares might look like.  As for the song, all I can think about is some pasty creep in his basement making this stuff on a shitty laptop placed precariously atop a nest of dirty laundry.”

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The Wytches – ‘Burn Out The Bruise’

“A nice haunted house style chord progression on this one. I don’t know what the f*ck this ‘wytch’ is screaming about but it’s kinda freakin’ me out over here. I bet The Wytches are a great live band and they probably get laid a f*ck ton.” 

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Tove Lo – ‘Not On Drugs’

“The lyrics really kill this one for me, especially when she references ‘Empire State Of Mind’ – it really just makes me wanna jump off the Empire State Building. The chorus has a good hard-hitting effect, but why would you make a song about not being on drugs? Take some drugs, goddamnit.”

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MNEK – ‘Wrote A Song About You’

“The animation in the video reminds me of the intro to Saved By The Bell, in a good way, and I like his pencil eraser style hair. My only problem with this is that he says he wrote a song about you that had the “strangest” melody, and then he proceeds to sing the song he wrote and the melody isn’t strange at all. Also, all I ever think of when I hear any techno beat is A Night At The Roxbury, so I can never take it too seriously.”

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Girl Band – ‘De Bom Bom’

“I probably would have been into this when I was 17. This is not the kind of music you would ever listen to at home, but I could see it being fun in a sweaty room with a vast array of weird armpit smells and damp humans with ugly future haircuts, if you’re into that sort of thing.”

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Words: King Tuff
Photo: Dan Monick

King Tuff online. ‘Black Moon Spell’ is released through Sub Pop on September 22nd.

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