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Primitive Desire is an 11-track collection of the first ever studio sessions by Girls Names, recorded in 2009 in Belfast.Visit product page →
It compiles their debut EP originally released on Captured Tracks, the eight songs that originally featured on the long-out-of print You Should Know By Now mini-EP released on Tough Love, and a hereto-unreleased bonus track.
Primitive Desire is exactly as labeled and provides fans with a document of the band's early years as a two-piece, fuelled by a distinct nervous energy and nascent dark edge that would manifest itself much more obviously on subsequent albums.
Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. Blood River
2.Tear Me Down
3. Blood Well
4. Graveyard
5. I Guess
6. Warm Hands, Cold Heart
Side B:
7. Running Scared
8. If I...
9. Oh, Girl!
10. Don't Let Me In
11. Don't Let Me Drown -
First new material in 2 years. Limited edition 12". 350 black vinyl.Visit product page →
'A zone of silence and of pure possibilities for a new beginning." Burn the past. Reset the clocks. A symphony in three parts.
'The initial idea for 'Zero Triptych' goes back almost three years, when we first became aware of the Group Zero art movement. Not only did I think it was the best name for a group of artists I'd ever heard, but their ideas, outlook and, most importantly, work struck a chord with me, which I then shared with the band. We've been inspired ever since. Not quite a conventional 'song', nor EP, we knew about a year and a half ago that this piece of music was evolving into something not conventionally defined in the classic rock/pop vernacular. It's essentially three different sections intertwined, hence the 'triptych'., I don't think this is something we'd have ordinarily tried were it not for the confidence we gained from touring a new line-up around Europe, when we learned to be a new band - that was probably our 'zero' moment.
While 'Zero Triptych' is our ode to the masters of light and shade - Mack, Piene and Uecker aka the Group Zero - it also had a very functional role for us: it effectively cleared our path, 'zeroed out' what had come before and reset the dials. And that's why it's the first song from the new line-up we wanted to share with the world.
There's a lot more to come very soon."
Tracklisting:
Zero Triptych -
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Limited Cream Vinyl / Black Vinyl / CD.
Northern Ireland's Girls Names return this autumn with their third full-length album, Arms Around a Vision, due for an October 2nd release via long-term home, Tough Love Records.
'We look to Europe for inspiration. For romance. For the idea of a better life,' says the band's frontman, Cathal Cully, when discussing the album. 'For me, living in Belfast just makes you focus on your own art.'
True, Girls Names formed in Belfast, but they've long considered themselves a European band. The distinction is important - their vision of Europe is one of weird, labyrinthian histories, blackest-ever-black coffee, and long drives to dismal places. Romantic notions for those of a certain disposition, but behind the thousand-yard stares they've always been a soft-hearted lot. As the title of Arms Around a Vision would suggest, they're all set to let love in.
The band initially came together as a relatively lean two-piece back in the summer of 2010, but over the course of a handful of EPs and three very different albums, they've grown in number and ambition. Their last album, The New Life, was an unexpected underground hit in early 2013, taking the band around the world and garnering much critical praise, culminating in nominations for both the Northern Irish and Irish Music Prizes. Emboldened by the reception to that record, in March they returned with an 11-minute single that was played in full on Radio 1 and, typically, does not feature on their new album. Girls Names like to do things a little differently.
On Arms Around a Vision, they're more widescreen than ever but also more direct and aggressive. The bass, drums and guitars are still there, but so are saxophones, organs, detuned broken guitars and pianos, and even sheets of metal assaulted with hammers. Conceptually, Arms Around a Vision acts as a love letter to European elegance - Italian futurism, Russian constructivism, Germany's Zero Group and both Neubaten and Bowie's Berlin.
Love and pain, romance and fucking. It's all in there somewhere. Grand claims, perhaps, but in an ever bleak world, why not skygaze? The album opens with Reticence', a song in two parts that's half metallic knockout, half midnight swagger. It sounds unlike anything they've ever done before, and is a perfect primer for an album that treads a course between Eno-era Roxy sleaze, Birthday Party dissonance and M.E.S'three R's: repetition, repetition, repetition.
As confident as it sounds, hardship has equally played a role in shaping Arms Around a Vision. 'I'm not starving or anything, but I've practically been living hand to mouth since I was 22,' confirms Cully. 'Most guitar music now is just a playground for the rich middle classes and it's really boring and elitist. We're elitist in our own way, in that we're on our own and you can't fuck with us when we've nothing to lose'. The near-6 minute A Hunger Artist'tackles that subject full on, addressing that age old adage of suffering for one's art.
While the songs aren't narrative-driven as such - the band still generally favour abstraction and ambiguity - there is a consistent underlying message: 'We've got nothing. We've never had anything. And we don't expect to. The only person I ever wanted to impress was myself. I've never got anywhere close to succeeding in doing that until this album. I'm proud of it. I think I can start saying I'm a musician now.'
Tracklisting:
1. Reticence
2. An Artificial Spring
3. Desire Oscillations
4. (Obsession)
5. Chrome Rose
6. A Hunger Artist
7. Málaga
8. Dysmorphia
9. (Convalescence)
10. Exploit Me
11. Take Out the Hand
12. I Was You -
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“Formed in January 2009 with their first gig booked before even playing together, Belfast ‘s Girls Names unabashedly hark back to the early/mid eighties shadow world of Beat Happening, Black Tambourine, Felt, C86 and the Sound of Young Scotland.
In their short existence they have quickly honed their craft in creating their own self-styled “disposable noise pop”, masking subdued bittersweet vocals and melodic hooks with reverb drenched guitars and Mary Chain primal drums.
Having sold out of their debut home taped demos on Cass/Flick (Belfast) last summer and after a string of support slots with the likes of Sic Alps, Wavves, Times New Viking, Lovvers and Gary War, Girls Names are set for their first release ‘proper’, with a 12 EP on Brooklyn’s much talked about Captured Tracks label and a full UK tour with label buddies -
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1. Lawrence
2. I Could Die
3. When You Cry
4. No More Words
5. Nothing More To Say
6. I Lose
7. Cut Up
8. Bury Me
9. Kiss Goodbye
10. Séance On A Wet Afternoon