Basement Scene Guest Mix 26/11/18
Our debut album Sistahs is out this Friday 30th November, and to celebrate Estella put together a guest mix for Basement Scene! Listen back and read more about her choices below!
1. Trash Kit - Medicine I love Trash Kit - their energy, the rhythms they use, their energetic live shows... they're such an exciting band. I can't wait to hear the new music they've been recording! 2. Charismatic Megafauna - Theresa May Charismatic Megafauna are a London 3-piece that deserve to be known everywhere. They play drums, percussion and synths (often having all 3 members on the drum kit at once) and make danceable political hits. They also pay attention to visuals during their live performances, often with costumes and projections, so they really put on a show. This track is from their brilliant album Semi-Regular, which was released this year and recorded by Mark Jasper from Witching Waves. 3. Screaming Toenail - Ad Nauseum Screaming Toenail are one of my favourite London bands! They describe themselves as "ANTI COLONIAL BELLIGERENT QUEER SCREAMING PUNK SASSY TOE NAILS." I love the smart and artful lyricism from Jacob V Joyce in this song, and their guitarist Niadzi's catchy verse riff. Screaming Toenail are currently recording an album with Margo Broom of Hermitage Works Studios, and from the little snippets I've heard it's going to be really special. Keep an eye out for it in 2019! 4. Solution Hours - Into the Sea Solution Hours are a really cool and relatively new 2-piece band from London. Their drummer and vocalist Charlotte uses spoken word and poetry techniques, whilst guitarist Andrew offers up subtle and discordant guitar work to form their unique sound. This year they released a great 4-track EP called Try Again (another one recorded by Mark!).
5. Child's Pose - Feral I'm really excited to have Child's Pose supporting Big Joanie at our London album launch in December. Their bio says they "deliver a refreshing take on pop informed post-punk" and I couldn't agree more - Iove the fun and spiky energy of this song. And if some of the band look familiar, it's because they feature members of Sauna Youth, Woolf, Nekra and Sarcasm. 6. No Home - Peach Seed I've seen No Home three times this year, and each time I'm in awe of their presence and power on stage. This is one of my favourite tracks from their Self Preservation EP. 7. CXR (Camp X-Ray) - Death to Women Haters I first met CXR at Thurston Moore's surprise 60th birthday party. They were calm and friendly, and gave no hint of the frenzied energy of their live shows. Big Joanie played 4 dates with CXR in October and this track was always a stand out for me. 8. Dubais and the Wolfs - Blowhard Dubais and the Wolfs played the UK in May this year, and consist of prolific artist Dubais (Nadia Buyse) and her fellow Wolfs: Allison Wolfe (Bratmobile), Steve Dore (Comet Gain) and Phillip Hucknall. Big Joanie were lucky enough to support them in London, and then Nadia and Allison paid a visit to Girls Rock Llove their poppy/bratty sound, and am chuffed to have Dubais supporting Big Joanie when we bring our album tour to Brighton this December!
9. Current Affairs - Breeding Feeling Current Affairs are another band I can't help but dance to - they are so fun live, and Joan's vocals are so powerful. This song is so urgent and catchy, and it's from last year's release Object. 10. Kapil Seshasayee - Caustic Wit Sticking with the Glasgow-based artists for now, here's Kapil Seshasayee. He performed at this year's Decolonise Fest (a London-based music festival run by punks of colour, for punks of colour), and his new album A Sacred Bore is a masterpiece. 11. MOLAR - Auslännerwalrecht I can't wait for the release of Molar's new record Straniero - I really like the immediacy of this track (which I'm pretty sure was called 'Luxembourg' in its early iterations) and vocalist Eilidh's sarcastic delivery. 12. NEKRA - Blood Nekra opened the first Decolonise Fest in 2017 with a short, blistering set of hardcore punk. 'Blood' is from their 5-track release Demo 2017, which in its entireity is less than 7 minutes long. The opening riff of this song gets me every time.
13. Doe - Labour Like I Do I can't stop listening to Doe's new album Grow Into It, and it was great to see some of those tracks live when they supported Speedy Ortiz this year. It really reflects how hard they've worked over the past few years, and I feel like I'll be watching them headline huge venues soon! 'Labour Like I Do' is such a brilliantly catchy single, and I love the hilarious video that accompanies it (which was actually filmed by Andrew from Solution Hours!). 14. Breakfust Muff - R U A Feminist I saw Breakfast Muff live at Rough Trade East last year and thought they were super refreshing. This song is a perfect slice of shouty, poppy DIY fuzz and the most relatable track I've heard in a while. 15. Shopping - Discover It was great to hear synth feature prominently on Shopping's new album The Official Body, and I love the way it opens this track. Big Joanie supported Shopping early in 2018 and this song really got me dancing (though to be fair, basically all of them do!). Also, Billy echoing the lyric "desperate" is really something here. 16. Big Joanie - Fall Asleep Yes I'm squeezing my own band in here haha. Our debut album Sistahs comes out this Friday 30th November, and this is the first single from it. The album was produced by Margo Broom from Hermitage Works Studios, and she introduced the idea of synth to this song, which really transformed it. The album will be released by Thurston Moore's new record label 'The Daydream Library Series,' and we'll be touring the UK from Friday 7th December. We can't wait for everyone to hear the album!