Gaggle
BIOGRAPHY -
Gaggle describe themselves as ‘an alternative to burlesque, shit tv and bad boy band watching’. An alternative choir made up of 22 women, Gaggle are a fantastically innovative new ‘band’ who are bringing their fresh all-girl vocals, dubstep beats, and matching robes into the London music scene to ring a few changes. NME calls them ‘the most exciting, innovative and genuinely imaginative force at large in music right now’, and for once it looks like they’re right!
Band leader, Deborah Coughlin - formerly of electro pop band 586 - started out with a clear vision of what she wanted: to create an all-female choir of a very different kind than the sort you might expect to find in your local church hall. She describes it as trying to create, ‘Something that didn’t already exist, the group is a landscape - a work of art.’
With Riot Grrl influences high in the equation - a good dose of Hole and Le Tigre in their confrontational, shrieking voices – and beats coming from the only male contributor to the project, Simon Dempsey, Coughlin’s previous band mate from 586. Other members range in age from 21 to 39 and hold down proper day jobs as teachers, research scientists and doctors, performing under pseudonyms to separate the rather colourful lyrics they can be heard howling on stage each night from their responsible careers.
As a live prospect, they dazzle with all the intriguing possibilities for performance and music making at their disposal, the 22 women crowded round just 6 microphones, with their commanding leader, Coughlin, set apart at the front, energetically directing her choir and pausing between songs to start the backing tracks which burst from her laptop. The unlikely pairing of electro/dub beats and a choral ensemble works to startling effect, and without a single release to date an incredibly strong live reputation already precedes them, with well attended slots at Latitude and Field Day under their belts and sell out London shows becoming routine.
Their quick rise in status since forming almost 2 years ago points towards a shift in the music blog sphere - though the hype machine loves them, they’re not the typical preening, careerist, saviours of new music who are commonly beloved by critics - it is their originality and intelligent sense of humour which works, so that Gaggle represent a bastion of hard edged, no compromise femme pop, or a group of “nu-rave pre-Raphaelites, phantasmagorical sci-fi warrior princesses at the forefront of radical musical-making”, according to some hack.
NEWS -
The girls’ first single, ‘I hear flies’ is out on Transgressive on 8th March, with a single launch party at St Giles’ Church this evening (22nd Feb).
LINKS
www.myspace.com/gagglespace
www.last.fm/music/gaggle
http://www.transgressiverecords.co.uk/artists/gaggle
VIDEOS
Video for debut single ‘I hear flies’
Crows - live on Radio 1
I like cigarettes - live at Barden’s Boudoir
words and thoughts by Samuel Smith