Influential Indie Women

At the end of 2015 and early 2016 saw an influx of female-lead bands producing some quite amazing fresh and unique albums so this blog will be a bit about the female singers that have influenced my music taste growing up and also the bands that are important to the music scene right now…or at least in my world.

Kate Bush

For me there was only ever one woman that was played over and over in our house…usually in the kitchen when my mum was either cooking, cleaning or ironing…and that was Kate Bush. She was like nothing that I’d ever seen or heard before. It wasn’t just the hit songs that she produced time after time or that nearly every song had it’s own unique sound… it was that she was unrivalled for her sustained brilliance and escalating oddness. From the amazing gothic romance of ‘Wuthering Heights’ to the chilling ‘Breathing’ a song about a slow death due to radiation sickness following a bomb attack…sticking to the war theme there was the anti-war driven ‘Army Dreamers’ and the quite unforgettable songs ‘Running Up That Hill’ and ‘Cloudbusting’.

Her Hounds Of Love album will always be one of my favourite albums and after it’s release in 1985 must have been in every household by Christmas that year!

The standout Kate Bush song for me has to be her second single that she released ‘The Man With The Child In His Eyes’…a quite amazingly beautiful song…her singing at times is delicately unsettling even eerie and her lyrics so powerful as she writes from a well of fantasy and feeling. It is such an emotive song that would bring even the hardened person to tears. Inspiration from her music has been clear throughout the 90s 00s and now…people from the likes of Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins), Björk and Tori Amos have all claimed influence of her lyrics or style…even bands like Suede who used to play Wuthering Heights before making their stage entrance…lead singer Brett Anderson holds her up there with Bowie, Lennon and Morrissey.

Kate Bush was definitely the first woman that I took notice of on the music scene…others worth a mention at this point though were the likes of Nico’s presence on the Velvet Underground’s self titled album, the utterly wonderful Sandy Denny from Fairport Convention (above) and to a lesser extent Pentangle’s Jacqui McShee…who were always there or thereabouts usually on a cold winters night sat in the dining room with an open fire crackling away.

Then the 1990s hit…and everything changed! Two women would battle it out for my fantasy love and affection for the next few years...Kim Deal and Toni Halliday.

Kim Deal

Kim Deal…bass player and backing singer for indie rock band The Pixies…although she did write and sing ‘Gigantic’ one of the band’s biggest hits. Their third album Doolittle is one of my favourite albums of all time…I can count on one hand albums that I have a similar amount of love for but not better.

For someone to go on from there to form another great band just shows how much talent she has. The Breeders were a side project for Kim Deal and a way for her to find some good use of her time off when The Pixies were on a break. During the release of albums Surfer Rosa and Doolittle and touring Europe she hooked up with Tanya Donnelly (Throwing Muses) and the Breeders were on their way. Although their debut album Pod was released to mild commercial success it received positive critical acclaim…having been recorded in only 11 days in an Edinburgh studio the album was influenced by both The Pixies and Throwing Muses but that seemed to enhance it with people like Kurt Cobain citing Pod as being one of his favourite albums and legendary producer Steve Albini stating that it was one of the best projects that he has worked on.

It was Last Splash though that had me under her spell…The Pixies had just released another two albums Bossanova and Trompe Le Monde and were becoming less active…Tanya Donnelly was well underway with forming her new band Belly so Kim and bass player Josephine Wiggs set off to a recording studio to produce the ‘Safari‘ E.P. They were eventually joined by Kim’s twin sister Kelly on guitar (who Kim taught to play just to join them) and Jim Macpherson on drums (who would go on to join Kim with The Amps).

Last Splash and their single ‘Cannonball’ which must be heard in every indie club night around the world on a weekly basis was a massive success in America and Europe. For me it was a symphony of feedback with melodies holding it all together that are sweet enough to take them home to meet your parents. It was raw…sloppy at times…the opening to ‘Cannonball’ was sung through a harmonica mic…just because Kim wanted to know what it would sound like…and the crazy whirring noise at the start of ‘S.O.S.’ came from Kelly feeding her sewing machine directly through a Marshall amp.

Kim is expressive yet enigmatic enough to cover a wide range of emotions and that made her stand out…yes if I’m totally honest the first thing that made me notice The Breeders was the unrecognisable classic indie bass riff of ‘Cannonball’ and the Spike Jonze video that was played time and again on MTV and The Chart Show…but once I was hooked by Kim Deal’s awesome voice and song writing ability I have been addicted and will be addicted for life!

Toni Halliday

Then there was shoegaze…I remember where I was the first time I saw Toni Halliday…I was sat with my Dad and Brother watching a TV show called ‘Friday at The Dome’…it was presented by Craig Ferguson…anyone remember it?

Anyway…to cut a long story short…I’ll link the video…but the end result was that in Curve and their single ‘Coast Is Clear‘ I was as blown away as Toni Halliday’s hair by the wind/smoke machine! I was utterly gobsmacked at how good they sounded and how beautiful she was. The next day I was straight into town to buy their Frozen E.P. which I found out later was their second release..I managed to find their first release Blindfold the week after in Al Fearnley’s record shop in Middlesbrough.

Produced by Alan Moulder who had worked with some of my favourites such as Ride, My Bloody Valentine and Smashing Pumpkins…mixed the talents of Dean Garcia’s heavy beats and rumbling bass with Toni Halliday’s ethereal vocal.

Their debut album Doppelganger did very well in the early 90s but releases following that didn’t really live up to the high standard that they burst onto the scene with. I was lucky enough to see them twice live…the first one being the most memorable at the Arena in Middlesbrough 1992. Stage diving should have been an Olympic sport in the early 90s! I managed to get onto the stage and grab a quick peck on Toni’s cheek and a smile before being man handled by the bouncers back into the crowd…it was worth every second of man handling!…saying that…that’s what happened in my head…it was maybe the after effect of being hurled back into the crowd…or too much Flying Herbert in the Tap and Barrel before-hand. The critics didn’t seem to give them the “Indie Cred” that unfortunately most people were after at that time and although I am left with some amazing singles that still today have the same effect on me that they did in the 90s they eventually called it a day in 2005. If you haven’t heard of Curve and want to hear a bit more I highly recommend listening to ‘Ten Little Girls’, ‘Coast Is Clear’, ‘Fait Accompli’ and ‘Horror Head'.

Other Indie ladies that I liked included:

Sarah Cracknell

Saint Etienne’s Pete Wiggs and Bob Stanley had initially decided upon using different session vocalists on their songs until they worked with Sarah Cracknell on ‘Nothing Can Stop Us’…it took me a few years to find out that it wasn’t Sarah singing on one of my favourite covers originally by Neil young … ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’. Sarah was very much a leading lady in Saint Etienne…she had movie star quality in the way she moved…she seemed to float through her lyrics with effortless ease.

I only saw them once up in Newcastle early in 1993 on their So Tough tour…they were excellent…nearly everyone in the crowd..even the ones not dancing were stood their smiling at Sarah because of the presence she had on stage.

Björk

Björk Guðmundsdóttir emerged from the Iceland Indie pop scene in the late 80's with audacious alternative band The Sugarcubes where she lead the line with Einar Örn. They were a band that reached cult status with songs like 'Hit', 'Deus' and 'Regina'...but it was 'Birthday' that catapulted them onto most peoples mixtapes.

Following the split from The Sugarcubes she released her first solo album with the help of producer Nellee Hooper (of Massive Attack fame) that went on to give her album 'Debut' and along with it her first International hit 'Human Behaviour'. It would be impossible, and unfair, to pigeonhole this album into one particular style of music and each track is filled with the creativity and personality that would become a trademark of Björk later on in her career. Songs like Big Time Sensuality and There’s More To Life Than This (which was recorded live in the toilets of a club) feature a feel good electronica style, and they really are a highlight of the album. I much prefer her singles to full on albums though...singles such as 'Army Of Me', 'Isobel' and 'Earth Intruders' will always have a place on my ipod.

Miki Berenyi

Lush never got the media acclaim that their shoegazing peers My Bloody Valentine or Ride got but for me they were still very important. Forming from a school friendship over writing a music fanzine Miki Berenyi and Emma Anderson eventually co-lead the band with songs that are as mournful and plaintive as the saddest blues song you could care to think of...but then could float majestically away in a blanket of reverb and distortion. Janes’ Addiction’s Perry Farrell described their sound as "music to soothe the savage beast" while others just say it moves them to tears.

After releasing a series of EPs that garnered Lush attention with the readers of then popular media outlets NME and Melody Maker they released 'Gala' as a compilation of those EPs. Spooky, released in 1992, was their debut album that showcased the dream-pop soundscapes and ethereal melodies of the band's two frontwomen and propelled Lush to recognition in America with a gig on 1992's Lollapalooza festival. In 1994 they released 'Split' which was a mix of Shoegaze and the blossoming Britpop sound which was evident with lead single 'Hypocrite'.

1996's 'Lovelife' is an album that, on the surface, seems closer to the Britpop sounds of the day than the band's previous albums, and the album was received as such. 'Single Girl' and 'Ladykillers', the two singles that preceded the album's release, were jubilant slices of driving melodic guitar pop. And on 'Ciao!' a kind of best of lush album...Miki duetted with Pulp's Jarvis Cocker, who himself was riding a Britpop wave on the strength of 1995's Different Class. All in all Miki's ethereal voice spent many hours echoing around my bedroom walls at college and University.

PJ Harvey

I heard Polly Jean Harvey's 'Sheela-Na-Gig' on a BBC Radio Evening Session and instantly fell in love with her music. The first words on her debut album 'Dry' are “Oh my lover, don’t you know it’s all right? / You can love her / You can love me at the same time.” This isn’t some male-gaze titillation thing...it’s a sad and troubled young woman wondering to herself how she’s going to hang onto this man and coming up with a tragically self-negating answer. That sort of thinking is all over the album...on 'Dress' she’s got herself all wrapped up in an uncomfortable tight thing, pushing herself into extreme discomfort to catch somebody’s eye.

On 'Sheela-Na-Gig' she’s describing all the most alluring parts of herself, describing herself like a piece of prize cattle, and getting shunned in the process. It’s an album about wanting human connection so badly that you dehumanise yourself to get it, and it gets its power from the discomfiting and intense realisation of those sentiments, and from how harsh and furious the music is. Other albums followed 'Rid Of Me', 'To Bring You My Love' and 'Stories From The City' but none of them had the same impact that 'Dry' had...saying that...'Down By The Water' is one of my favourite PJ Harvey songs to date.

Justine Frischmann

Frischmann studied architecture at UCL in London, where in 1991 she formed Suede with her then boyfriend Brett Anderson..although she felt as if she was the token "girl in the corner". Justine left Suede and Anderson for Blur’s frontman and band rival Damon Albarn and by the end of the following year she’d formed her own band called Elastica. Released in 1995, Elastica’s self-titled debut album was a succinct and punchy indie album that debuted at No 1 in the UK charts. Many thanks to their meteoric rise came from the word-of-mouth of BBC Radio's Steve Lamacq who championed them on his Evening Sessions show before signing them to his Deceptive Records label. Their singles 'Stutter', 'Connection', 'Line Up' and 'Waking Up' could rival anything that was being released at the time. Frischmann in 1995 said of their debut “I think we’ve made a record you can put on from start to finish without feeling like you want to kick the cat. You could put it on as you’re going out, before you go to sleep or when you’re having sex.”...I think she's right.

If you have not heard them...give them a listen

There are a few women that are about at the moment that I feel are important to music...as the title suggests please give them a go if you have not already.

Courtney Barnett

Aussie Singer/Songwriter whose latest album Sometimes I Sit and Think and sometimes I just Sit was an amazing collection of indie relatable ramblings with a down-under drawl and guitars…I had it down as my 2nd favourite album of 2015.

Palehound

Ellen Kempner is the singer/songwriter/guitarist behind Palehound...her open and honest lyrics burn softly amid the splashes of dramatic guitar and it's the unexpected twists and turns of the compositions that at times steal the show. I found it very easy to like her music straight away...others may find it a slow burner...but she'll get you eventually.

Stealing Sheep

Three Liverpudlians that blend psychedelic rock with gypsy folk then throw in a synth or two with outstanding results. Not only do they have two really good albums 'Into The Diamond Sun' and 'Not Real' they are excellent live.

Hinds

All female Spanish group that will be an early front runner for album of the year? Probably not..they will win quite a few fans this year that’s for certain. The songs they released under the name 'The Deers' that they have added to their debut album 'Leave Me Alone' seem to be the better songs. Songs like 'Bamboo', 'Chili Town' and 'San Diego' are a perfect slice of Spanish indie pop.

Novella

They name influences such as My Bloody Valentine, Velvet Underground and The Pale Saints so they are already decent in my book…but this also comes through in their music. Their debut album Land was released in 2015 and went relatively unnoticed…I think it’s an absolute little gem…and definitely a band I need to see live. In lead singer Hollie Warren they have a strong female vocalist who stands up front while the guitars and keyboard swirl about her...very much like Nico of Velvet Underground fame.

As always...thanks for reading.