Archive for February 28th, 2016

Feb
28

Epilogue to last year’s weekly challenge

Posted by jill on February 28, 2016

For nearly all of last year (I started two weeks late), I set myself a challenge to listen to a new band every week. I started this because I’d been finding that I was listening to the same few 5+ year old albums and hadn’t been actively seeking out new music to listen to.

Looking back at last year, what has surprised me was how many of those acts were female solo artists or female fronted bands. I had always commented that my music collection was very male led (reflecting on the nature of the music that I like listening to). But a third of the posts from last year featured solo women or lead singers and of the ones that I liked enough to go and buy the albums, three-quarters were female. Two of these were probably my favourite records of the year: Susanne Sundfør and Emily Hall. Mothers only released their album on Friday, but it would have been on the list too.

Mothers_Lexington

The swings in their music comes out even more live than on record. One minute Kristine Leschper’s voice holds everyone’s attention, the next, the guitar pedals are used to full effect to re-create the 90s via grunge. The tension between the fragility and the full scuzziness is what makes them interesting to listen to. There was still some looseness in the way they played, but it would be fun to see them in the Autumn to see what a full summer’s touring would do to tighten up the way they sound.