It’s a big day for @feminazgultheband! We are SO PSYCHED to join the @AdultSwimSingles family!
If you like ferocious women, (literally) fiery experimental metal, and/or long-misunderstood and neglected folkloric traditions, please do listen, share, and repost!
In keeping with the band’s music approach, “A Mallacht” incorporates piano and other non-traditional instruments alongside the barrage of guitars, drums, and synths. The song draws lyrically from the history of Irish curses (“mallacht”) and musically from Irish mourning song (“keening”), a direction influenced by guest vocalist @kristinebarrett, currently working on her second Master’s degree in Folklore at UC Berkeley.
“I pulled from descriptions of keens in ethnographic accounts, local synods (outlawing the practice and prescribing various punishments), and literary sources; many of which often described keening as the ‘howling of wolves,’” Barrett explains. “The keening women (mná chaointe) were often described as disheveled and wild in appearance (barefoot, mangled hair, etc.). Both feared and honored, keening women were not simply responsible for guiding the living through grief (though that is certainly part of it), but ‘sewing’ social fabric—stitching the broken body of the dead, family, and community back together again via encoded laments and performative deathing rituals. Lament was also a space for women to rebuke, curse, and express injustices, often towards those involved in the conditions that brought about death.”