Sloppy Jane

[Retinend]

I just discovered this wild indie rock group "Sloppy Jane." It's led by Haley Dahl, who has a massive, very theatrical rockstar stage presence that reminds you of Bowie in his heyday, or Iggy Pop and the Stooges.

Her band is large and mostly female - she often whips them up into a frenzy using gestures to "conduct" them - as Zappa used to do. In songs such as "King Hazy Lady" and others I'm reminded of the ramshackle - yet somehow "orchestrated" - sound of the early Mothers of Invention or Magic Band.

Besides music, Dahl has also worked as a stripper, and regularly appears nude on stage, with a mouthful of blue "blood".


Paste Magazine "Daytrotter" Session (August 2018)

They were formed as a teenage punk/goth band in LA when the friends/band members were teenagers listening to Marilyn Manson and Hole. Then Dahl started listening to older stuff like Roy Orbison and the Beach Boys. She moved to Brooklyn, New York and found a new band but used the same name for it.

"King Hazy Lady" (live)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BFZnFONy00

Album: "Willow" (2018) 38 mins
https://open.spotify.com/album/27b5zGoTeu3YQO04wGTQg0

"the album is loosely based around a strip club worker named Willow. The climactic track "Bark Like A God" is the song that the character chooses to strip to. There's a conversation being had between a seller and a strip club patron. Though it mentions God in the context of sex, in fact, Dahl is celibate and very much a woman of God. "I just don't have sex, I don't care about it... I really resonate with the concept of there being a higher power: it's a universe that I prefer to exist in; one where I decide that everything has some kind of meaning." (btrtoday.com)

01. King Hazy Lady
02. Mindy
03. Kitchen Store
04. Bark Like a God
05. King Mitis
06. In The Future It Was Me That Burned it Down
07. Where's My Wife
08. La Cluster
09. Peroxide Beach
10. Potassium (We Saw Everything)

Vogue interview:
https://www.vogue.com/vogueworld/article/haley-dahl-sloppy-jane-brooklyn

If the quality of the music and the interview with Vogue is anything to go by, she will be absolutely huge once real life resumes.

[Retinend]

I'm really appreciating track 8, "La Cluster", today: an instrumental track that reminds me of The Residents, mixed in with The Beach Boys
https://open.spotify.com/track/1ZWZjNWqC3Mdouho0JgDQ0?si=873cacc4eeed4a0b

The following track "Peroxide Beach" is also one that's growing on me fast - strong Sonic Youth vibes.

[Glebe]

My brother got into these guys a year or two ago, I've listened to a few of their sessions on YouTube and they're very interesting. Bit of Sonic Youth in there.

[Shaky]

This is fucking GREAT. CaB comes through once again!

[Famous Mortimer]

Thumbs down to that live video you linked, which was sort of irritating to the ears, but I'll give em another go.

[Retinend]

The album version is a lot better, I agree actually.

[Retinend]

Bump - there's an amazing story behind the new album - out this week:

Subterraneous settings can lend music a beautiful, ethereal resonance. But recordings are rare, for good reason. At Lost World, the cave dripped, echoed and randomly hummed. Because of the humidity, the recording equipment was relocated to a car parked at a nearby grate aboveground. Five band members needed a day to get the piano into position and another one to get it out. Each workday started at around 3 p.m. and ended anywhere from 6 or 8 a.m. Over two weeks, Dahl, 21 musicians and a film crew endured a constant temperature of 53 degrees Fahrenheit and numerous round trips through a long, sloped tunnel.

the full article for free

The first single is a slow burner. I really like it - it shows off the acoustics down there in the cave - and it's a lot less Zappa/Punk than the first album's sound, and a lot more Beach Boys/ Beatles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US0jpbPSdw0&feature=emb_title
Sloppy Jane - Party Anthem (Official Video)
15,084 viewsPremiered Sep 9, 2021

[Misspent Boners]

Madison is out today; I'm at around the 3 quarter mark and it's made me feel a little bit tearful, just because how reassuring it is that people are still capable of being inventive and fearless when making music. On the other hand a lot of the songs are way way more accessible than any of her previous work, but the performance arty avant-garde aspect is still very much there too.

Its very musical theatre, but in a good way.

Basically it's flooringly good, I'm floored.

[Twonty Gostelow]

Over two weeks, Dahl, 21 musicians and a film crew endured a constant temperature of 53 degrees Fahrenheit

Eh?

[Retinend]

Here's the Spotify link:
https://open.spotify.com/album/17FteLw9nXHusWd9vsVa2p?si=sYtQI2TwRfyQmLDELcrckQ

I'm listening to it for the first time right now. High expectations.

[Retinend]

I think it was a good album. I prefer the first album, although really you can't compare the two. It's an entirely new direction. It sounds very epic, and at times veers into the classical. I'm sure that it will grow on me, but for now I'd give it 7/10.

[Retinend]

Second listen: the first time I heard it I thought the classical elements were sophmoric, but now I appreciate its rousseauean charm. It's best appreciated with your full attention given over to it. It's impressive how these tracks were made with all these musicians down there together in the caves creating this music. The cave mission thing definitely softened her entire songwriting MO. It's a peaceful album. Lyrics are quite sincerely Christian at times.

[chutnut]

Its been taking me ages to work out where I recognise her from, I think its from some articles a few years ago about when she got mugged.

I checked out a few tunes but I don't think it's for me to be honest. From what I heard the older stuff is very drama student (although I do quite like a few of the sonic youth sounding bits), and the new piano cave stuff is pretty generic lana del rey style crooning

[Retinend]

This is becoming like a one-man tribute thread by this point (thanks anyway, Misspent Boners) but listening to this for the third time I really like it. The stuff which seemed a bit too miscellaneous on first (or second) listen really coalesced for me this time. For example, at first I was turned off by how devotional "Jesus on Your Living Room Floor" was in its lyrics ("I pledge allegiance to Jesus, Jesus on your living room floor"), but now I find it very soothing - almost like modern church music . "Judy's Bedroom" - the country tune which follows it - also seemed a bit silly to me at first. But now I see that it's a Beatles-esque thing - Bungalow Bill or Yer Blues, or a track like that. It's part of a wider tapestry. I won't convince anyone with super long posts, so I'll leave it at that. Listen to Madison!

that link again:
https://open.spotify.com/album/17FteLw9nXHusWd9vsVa2p?si=sYtQI2TwRfyQmLDELcrckQ