Sunday 14 June 2020

Now Here's An Echo From Your Future. Girls In Synthesis.

Photo by Bea Dewhurst.
"The most basic tenet of the Bauhaus was form follows function. ... Because of the Bauhaus belief in the oneness of the artist and the craftsman, their courses taught students to eliminate the ideas of the individual and instead focus on the productivity of design" (1).

Truly revolutionary music isn’t just about lyrical content it is also about form, structure, texture. Dada, Bauhaus, Russian Constructivism wrestled with the question of form as well as content, if forms and structures can reproduce bourgeois values as James claims (2) then they can also produce and communicate alternative narratives, contestation of the (neoliberal) status quo. It was an idea that was pursued by several of the post punk bands including The Raincoats; can you create music that is a transposition of counter cultural concepts and practice into both the creative process and musical form? Truly revolutionary music moves away from the (inspired) lone artistic genius towards collaboration, collectivity, an artisanal sensibility in the process of production as well as revolutionary form and content. 

Which brings us to Girls In Synthesis who, taking their cues from the early DIY punk and post-punk pioneers, keep everything in-house, their artwork, videos, performances and recordings created entirely by the band (art collective?) and their handful of trusted collaborators. So far GIS have operated as a DIY collective, part of a network of resistance. There have been antecedents; Test Dept, Henry Cow, Gnod, bands that have followed a similar path of both inter and independence.

The results of this model were compiled in the 2019 release Pre/Post: A Collection 2016-2018, a compilation of their previous EP releases, a jarring, exhilarating, intense expression of urban working class experience in 21st century Britain. Both musically and lyrically Pre/Post was a perfect representation of the stressful, anxious, precarious alienation so many of us cope with but at the same time they reminded us through their live shows of the cultural and social resources available; the importance of egalitarian community, trust, mutual respect, hope.

So where do you go when your creative model, musical form, lyrical content and live practice are all that could be reasonably hoped for in a band? How do you move from phase 1 to phase 2? How do you follow up Pre/Post?

You release Now Here’s An Echo From Your Future.

Ten tracks, 31 minutes that both reflect and interrogate the individual and social experience in contemporary Britain with searing, brutal insight, honesty and vulnerability. You will understand more about modern life in 31 minutes of NHAEFYF than you would from 31 years of tabloid newspapers and state/capitalist broadcasters.

On first listen NHAEFYF was like being bludgeoned with a very loud stick (?), a wall of ferocity with a disconcerting break in the middle. But on the second listen you start to experience the contours, shades, multiple textures, extra instrumentation as the songs take shape, emerge as defined, separate entities ( initially i was going to write ‘hear’ not ‘experience’ but it is more than aural).

First track up is ‘Arterial Movement’, released as part of a 3 track EP in October last year it’s a track that pulses intensity at you!! It’s like an adrenalised heartbeat of music, coming at you, dropping back, like being able to hear your own blood pulsing through your body,
“Walk along the roads that we create. Travelling the distance that we need. To take away the pain you feel inside. Hard when no progress can be seen…We progress, progress in arterial movements. We define, define in arterial movements… Opening the door to somewhere else. Managing the contents there within…”
An expression of empathy, of care, of solidarity, the song deals with the process of helping someone through their mental struggles, while simultaneously being wholly aware of your own issues.
“Victories don’t always look like other people think they should” said an old man in the film Good Vibrations (4).

‘Pressure’ The video for this when released in November was of the band live, black and white, hand held, interspersed with the band on a rooftop, boiler suits and boots, utilitarian clothing for cultural workers.  Watching it again made me re-realise how much I’m missing live music
“I won’t cooperate with anyone who doesn't play their part”.

‘The Images Agree’ is the most recent single and another storming track that comes at you in a barrage of sound and images, on first listen it seemed like several things going on at once that happened to be in sync, but only just! The press release put it better “The song features the trademark driving bass and drums, which now forms part of the signature GIS sound. But, on top of this, is unusually dissonant guitar that pulls the listeners focus away from the main melodic and rhythmic elements and towards what could pass as another song altogether”. John commented on the song’s subject matter “Media manipulation has become an art and a tool for people with the wrong intentions to control or mislead the public, as this becomes more and more acceptable (or undetectable...) it's important to question and not blindly accept. As we have seen with the government’s recent lack of clarity and transparency during the current pandemic, a headswim of confusion is created to stop people seeking the truth, no matter how despairing it may be.”

‘Human Frailty’ is a tender look at the process of aging and eventual death
“Wish I could halt time that lays waste to your body, Stop the clock on ageing that makes your bones brittle, the minutes speed through, the hours do too, Against any reasoning my time spent with you. Relent human frailty, relent human frailty.”
Towards the end the introduction of brass adds a different, poignant texture to the song.

'They’re Not Listening’ is an important reminder to working class people who have somehow ended up believing that Boris Johnson is their mate, that the right wing of the Tory party always have their own best interests at heart! To quote the press release again ‘They’re Not Listening’ reflects on the fact that “the time-old tradition of the right wing accosting desperate working class people has returned.” The lyrics seem to express the disempowering, reductive experience of being ignored, overlooked, of no consequence in an instrumentalist system where all that was wanted was your vote.

‘Cause For Concern’ “Constant cause for clash. Pointed, surging, crash. Can’t escape or learn. Constant cause for concern….We can’t go on this way, NO!

I think at the moment the next two tracks are my favourites on the album.‘Coming Up For Air’. “I’m coming up for air, suffocation, suffocation”. Dense and intense!

‘Set Up To Fail’ “Bored of what scores of people still adore, holding up the ceiling whilst falling through the floor, Scraping down the walls until my nail beds rub raw, Settling for less, screaming out for more more, more”. Describe it as Utopian if you want to but that knowledge, that sense, that things can be, will be, better persists despite capitalism’s attempts to convince us otherwise, We can still imagine the end of capitalism, we can still envisage a better world, we cannot reconcile ourselves to the dreary shit of recycled culture and ‘just about getting by’. Again they use discordant brass to give the prolonged driving outro a superb feel.

‘Tirades of Hate and Fear’ explores the rise of provincial, reactionary xenophobic politics and reminded me of How To Lose a Country by Ece Temelkuran, who writes that nationalist populism tends to emerge in the provincial towns away from the urban centres (5). Suburban Hell? “I hear too much noise, and not enough thought, insecure people are easily bought...Screaming from your lungs, looking for more fools, using fear and hate as your recruitment tools”.

The outdated idea of continual social progress is gone, after 40 years of neoliberal governance, 10 years of top down class war masquerading as austerity, with a far right government and print media well versed in the strategies of propaganda and bullshit any one who has been paying attention knows that culture can go either way; a more egalitarian future or a slide into increasing dystopia; ‘transition to socialism or regression into barbarism’ to steal Engels/Rosa Luxemburg’s phrase (3). Now could be an echo from our future...of increasingly authoritarian capitalism and environmental melt down but there is still hope, the chance of an egalitarian, progressive society. With NHAEFYF Girls In Synthesis present us with these two options and implicitly ask us to decide whose side we’re on.

GIS: this generation's Clash?

     
Bibliography.

(1) Lekach, M. (2016) ‘Know your design history:the Bauhaus movement’ https://99designs.co.uk/blog/design-history-movements/know-your-design-history-the-bauhaus-movement/#:~:text=The%20most%20basic%20tenet%20of%20the%20Bauhaus%20was%20form%20follows%20function.&text=Because%20of%20the%20Bauhaus%20belief,an%20institution%20taught%20by%20masters.

(2) James, R. (2014) ‘Resilience and Melancholy: Pop Music, Feminism, Neoliberalism’, Zero Books, Winchester UK and Washington, USA

(3) Socialism or Barbarism (disambiguation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_or_Barbarism_(disambiguation)

(4) Good Vibrations (2013), Revolution Films/Canderblinks Film and Music Ltd.

(5)Temelkuran, E. (2019) How To Lose a Country; The Seven Steps From Democracy To Dictatorship, 4th Estate, London.

Wednesday 3 June 2020

Las Ratapunks!


Already involved in various ways in the Peruvian punk scene Irma (drums), Kiara (guitar), YK (vocals) and Wendi (bass) got together as Las Ratapunks in 2014. They released the 6 track Ratas de Ciudad in 2017 and earlier this year put out the excellent Fracaso, Ano de la Rata 2020, 6 tracks of exciting, energised, rip roaring, modern punk! Dealing with social issues including corruption, femicide and sexual harassment the 6 tracks are an important reminder of the potency of punk to challenge political and cultural injustice and militate for change. Although only released in March Fracaso, Ano de la Rata 2020 has already caught the attention of those with their ears to the ground with tracks being played by Just Some Punk Songs and The Noise Merchant in the UK.

The band had a short tour of Europe, playing France, Germany and Spain, planned for this summer but like many things it has had to be rescheduled to 2021 due to the global Covid 19 pandemic. However,  putting their money where their lyrics are, the band will give all money made through album sales on Bandcamp to organisations helping to mitigate the effects of Covid 19 in Peru.

Having been blown away by their new album and their concern for social justice it seemed like a good move to find out a bit more about Las Ratapunks       

Could you tell us about Las Ratapunks? Where in Peru are you based?  When did you get together? 
We’re a punk band from Cajamarca, northern Peru, we got together in 2014 with the intention of making noise and express ourselves, tell our experiences and what we think about certain situations.

How did you get together, were you friends who became a band or a band that became friends?!
Both; Irma, Kiara and YK met through concerts and mosh pits, one day we decided to rent a rehearsal space just to see what came out of it, by the time we were out we had a band. Wendi  came in as bass player a week after our first show and that’s the line up that we’ve kept to this day

Why did you get together? What were the main reasons that made you decide to form a band?
We got together because we wanted to have a band, sing about some experiences, let our voices be heard in regards to certain issues that we don’t agree with, and to give visibility to other issues that are still taboo. 

Did you have a clear idea of how you wanted to sound when you started?
We found our sound as we learned how to play, at some point we hoped we’d sound like the Distillers, then like 90’s Peruvian skatepunk , then we ended up sounding the way we do today: like the Ratapunks

How did you decide on the name, Las Ratapunks!?
Because our sound was really raw, pretty ratty at the beginning and also cause we’re the size of rats.

The video to 'Los Ladrones' off your 2017 album, Ratas de Ciudad, is really interesting, what issues are you singing about in that song?
Los Ladrones is about the political corruption in the country, we decided to use archived images in the video because to us it's important to put the current state of Peruvian Political corruption and injustice on display; also, near the date premiere of the video a politician who is connected to corruption scandals had a traffic cone thrown at his head, and we saw it as  representation of all the impotence that the people feel, that’s why we include the cones in the video, as a representation of the peoples revenge (it's part of the lyrics).

Watch here!

Earlier this year you released the 6 track Fracaso, Ano de la Rata 2020 (Failure,Year of the Rat 2020). Could you tell us what the different tracks are about?
We touch on subjects that we think are important to visualize such as corruption, exploitation, dehumanization, injustice, impunity, sexual harassment, feminicides, child pregnancy and resisting a corrupt system, and also the contradictions we face on a day to day as human beings.

Listen here!

You have a really exciting style, do you feel it has changed at all between the first and second album?
There is a better technique, but the same drive to say what we think and what we believe. The first EP was recorded live in a Cajamamarca Skatepark thanks to Sawá Sesiones, from which we got a reduced number of recordings on Princo CD’s, which we hand decorated. For the second EP we worked with friends who did the recording (Granizo Estudio), mixing(Nicolas Vair), mastering(Robin Rieuvernet) and artwork (Bto Prieto), and we’re planning on a limited a 7 inch vinyl release, and some cassettes through Entes Anomicos, a german-peruvian indie record label, though we’ve had to put everything on hold due to the pandemic.

Is there a big punk scene in Peru? Do you get a chance to play live often?
Peru has bands from the 90s/00s and even current date that are still playing and releasing DIY material; they organize gatherings and punk festivals annually and there is a chain of distribution and material though independent stores.
We usually play, up until now we’ve had the chance to play in Trujillo, Lima and Arequipa, we’ve organized some shows in Cajamarca where we live. But we’ve mainly had a steady amount of shows.

Do you think local cultural influences and histories mean there is a difference between European/N. American punk and South American/Peruvian punk in terms of musical styles or do you think punk is a global culture?
Punk is a world culture, although there are similarities between the subjects it tackles, we find differences in regards to specific characteristics about how these develop according to geographic location, for example, we can all talk about corruption but the political reality of a place that’s different to others in some regards, and every place place has its own sound, which is also fed by its history.

Were there any bands that inspired you musically, that you were influenced by?
Narcosis, Asmereir, Maria T-Ta, Metadona, G3, Diazepunk, Eutanasia, Unidad 4, Eterno, Shukakes, 70s punk from Spain, The Clash, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Adolescents, Fugazi, etc.

How can people hear your music and buy any merchandise?
You can hear us on Bandcamp, Spotify, Youtube and you can contact us by sending a DM to Las Ratapunks on Facebook or Instagram.

What are your plans for 2020 and 2021? Any thoughts of playing Europe at all when the Covid 19/Coronavirus crisis has died down?
We were planning on going to Europe in august this year but now we’re just hoping to survive, we are going to reschedule the dates for when the current crisis is over seeing as how critical the situation has been here in Perú, the rain forest has been hit pretty hard due to the global pandemic, and it's not just the cities, the indigenous population is also suffering. We are going to donate the money we gain from album sales through Bandcamp during the entire month of June to some organizations that are collecting funds to help (the people of) the Peruvian rain forest.

Check out and buy Fracaso, Ano de la Rata 2020 here!

Big thanks to Alonso Saer for his translation work and assistance in this interview!!




Bibliography.
http://subterock.com/las-ratapunks-europa-nuevo-disco/ referenced in Intro