Philadelphia based duo Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad akaGirlpool have announced details of their debut album “Before The World Was Big”, as well as sharing the lead track “Ideal World”. We got hooked on their brash drumless compositions full of in-your-face vocal harmonies thanks to last year’s brilliant self-titled EP, and now we’ve got a full album to look forward to courtesy of Wichita Recordings on June 1st 2015.
Girlpool already shared “Chinatown” from the album so take a listen to the second little taste from the record with lead single “Ideal World” .
LA duo Girlpool cover ‘Cut Your Bangs’ the original was by Radiator Hospital at a special NME session at The Macbeth in London.
If Kurt Cobain alive today, he would probably be declaring Girlpool the greatest band in the world and name-dropping them to fame. The Nirvana singer loved riot grrrl pioneers Bikini Kill and obscure British indie groups such as the Raincoats – and those sounds seem to have inspired this Los Angeles duo.
For a pair who didn’t expect to ever leave the LA underground scene, and whose self-titled debut EP began life as a homemade cassette before being re-released by Wichita, Cleo Tucker and HarmonyTividad must be happy with their progress to date.
Written for electric and bass guitars and two shrill voices, Girlpool’s songs are sparse, needling, angular and caustic – they could be Marine Girls gone grunge, or First Aid Kit raised on Sleater-Kinney. Even if their material sounds like extended intros awaiting drums that never crash in, their purist aversion to clutter places intense focus on their lyrics, which are rawer than a pair off freshly skinned knees. Plants and Worms, Ideal World and Paint Me Colours are misfit anti-anthems about self-empowerment, boredom, anger and the intense sexual and romantic desires and discomforts of youth.
It is best to think of the singers less as a band without a rhythm section than as a duo doing an amped-up, confrontational take on the singer-songwriter genre – which they also seem capable of doing on more polite terms. When they resist their natural instinct for abrasion with a show-stopping harmony-drenched cover of Radiator Hospital’s Cut Your Bangs, Tucker and Tividad show they can do “pretty” just as well as harsh.
When Harmony Tividad and Cleo Tucker harmonize, it’s like a lightning bolt to the gut. As Girlpool, the two keep the instrumentation spare — just an electric guitar and bass — while infusing their songs with a striking confidence that knows we’re all failures, or at least trying not to fail so often. So in “Chinatown” when they sing, “And if I told you I loved you, would you take it the wrong way?” it’s raw and vulnerable, taking stock of a painfully awkward situation with open eyes. After a self-titled cassette (recently reissued on vinyl) and a move from L.A. to Philadelphia, Girlpool is putting “Chinatown” on a forthcoming 7″single. Even in such a short period of time, there’s growth here in the vocal phrasing and pacing, not to mention production that rounds out the trebly tinniness. the cheap guitar twang remains; it’s an intimate quality shared in this video, homemade videos with friends and fellow musicians. “Chinatown” comes out March 24th on Wichita Recordings, featuring a cover of RadiatorHospital’s “Cut Your Bangs” on the B-side.
Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad are teenage friends from Los Angeles who make fuzzy punk lo-Fi Songs styled songs, they write catchy critiques about society and its cultural ills, Friends throughout the truly tough part of life—high school—Harmony Tividad and Cleo Tucker are like the baddest girls in school, screaming their girly rage through the hallways. But the duo isn’t cutting class just to frolic in the fun and play guitar. No, they have a message and they’ll sing it loud and banging. On their self-titled debut EP, Girlpool tackles themes from slut shaming and self expression to Saturday night and drunk boys. It’s girl power at its unwavering height—difficult and fun. Tividad and Tucker throw a party, lace their boots and stomp their melodies into our brains. And they do it all without a drummer
It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a year since Girlpool’s track “Jane”. Since then, Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad have taken the world by storm – they’ve toured the coasts and Europe, opened for Jenny Lewis, Bratty and wild, the Los Angeles duo is relentless. Their voices challenge each other in a back-and-forth battle of scream and song, separately unique and together defiant. It’s a magnetic combination that’s impossible to ignore. Tividad and Tucker throw a party, lace their boots and stomp their melodies into our brains. And they do it all without a drummer
Their new song, “Alone at the Show”, which happens to be the first song on THE LE SIGH Vol. II. album Clocking in at a little under two minutes, the song is an ode to unrequited crushes and of course, being alone at shows. please check out their debut mini album a pure gem and one of my favourites of the year
Through Girlpool’s seven tracks, the band grow into their make-up as a two-piece with aplomb, complementing each other with both voice and instruments. With this much anger, unapologetic social commentary and ambition crushed into just sixteen minutes, the promise of more to come from Girlpool is irresistible.”
0:00 Blah Blah Blah, 2:06 Paint Me Colors, 4:55 Love Spell, 5:32 Plants and Worms, 8:14 Jane, 10:20 Slutmouth, 13:00 American Beauty,
Made up of Harmony Tividad and Cleo Tucker, the duo chose early on to do more with less: They use only a guitar, a bass, and their own voices to craft prickly and powerful rock. Their minimalist approach to sound allows the lyrics to take center stage, and those lyrics are achingly genuine and upfront. Above all else, the band values their vulnerability something that comes through potently in their music. It’s punk in the best sense of the word: fresh, raw, and uncompromising, a callback to the heyday of riot grrl exceptionalism.
Girlpool,– two female musicians who got together a while back at LA’s famous indie haunt the Smell – are a scream. Literally: they sound as though they’re screaming all the time on their records. OK, maybe not screaming. Something shriller and whinier than that. Shrieking. Whatever, it’s effective, and those voices, combined with their raw stripped-down guitar-bass arrangements (no drums) and simple nursery rhyme-goes-Americana melodies, make for an arresting combination. It is like being cornered by a couple of characters from HBO’s Girls and made to listen to their boyfriend problems in excruciating detail
Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad, the brains behind Los Angeles fuzz-punk duo Girlpool, have a penchant for penning catchy critiques about prevalent social issues, like our culture of silence. First there was “Jane”, a noir-ish guitar ballad encouraging all to speak up in the face of oppression. In the pair’s latest unapologetic single, “Blah Blah Blah”, they refuse to stay silent, calling out a nameless former friend for their meaningless words and excuses. Seeing how this person left Girlpool crying in the rain, chased other girls, and then called them after for comfort, it’s sweet retribution when the two snarl together: “I can’t stand your shit anymore!” and just for comparison here is the BIG STAR version
The Fat Angel Sings 