In 2011 in their hometown of Berlin, Gurr members Andreya andLaura were both doing North American Studies at the same university. “Laura used to walk around with a Joy Division tote back, and I had a Ramones one, so we became friends,” Andreya says, smiling through the webcam. “Then, a year later we went travelling through England for five weeks, and pretended we were in a band… but we didn’t have any songs! So when we came back we went to a practice room and wrote some.”
The sweet, easy nonchalance with which Andreya (who plays guitar in the band, while Laura’s on drums) tells me this story is a feeling that permeates a lot of their music. Gurr’s first album, In My Head, released two years ago, is a 30-minute collection of bright, raucous guitar pop. “Give me those big false eyes of wonder / Sticky kisses, a big jacket which we can hide under,” they sing in “Breathless”, their riffs pumped up and excitable, like a more polished Bratmobile. In another, “Rollerskate”, their harmonies are sugary and intertwined, but also sludgy, like Bikini Kill covering a 60s girl group. Whichever way you spin it, they’ve got a distinctly American flavour; the kind that comes from obsessing over the country’s rock heritage.
The track itself is glorious, all energetic garage punk riffs and guitar solos and hypnotic, circular vocals. But Gurr tell me it’s misleading in relation to what’s on the rest of their new album. “It gets quite sad after this,” Andreya says, “There’s more of a 90s, Breeders kind of vibe, with some of them even a bit Nirvana-ish, and some of the songs are a bit 60s psych-y, like Velvet Underground.” Laura explains how their new material also reflects a sense of instability, as they’ve recorded most of it in snatches on the road, or at studio sessions between festivals. “Doing music is the greatest thing in the world but it’s also the scariest,” she says, “Millennials can relate to that because we’re all having these weird working situations. That pops up in a lot of the songs.”
The Fat Angel Sings 