Female recording artists are getting a bit peculiar these days.
On one side we have the self-conscious, bizarro posturings of the Gaga/La Roux brigade, and on the other fey types like Bat for Lashes are dancing around with fairies coming out of their ears. It’s almost as if the whole thing is going to reach some sort of surrealist, over-produced event horizon and disappear up its own upholstered behind.
Luckily, She Makes War has arrived: a female artist who – in full warpaint – delivers interesting, edgy tunes with music and stuff in them. Imagine!
She Makes War is Laura Kidd, a female singer/songwriter from London. But wait – come back – she’s not that sort of female singer/songwriter from London. For a start, we’re fairly sure that her dad isn’t a famous actor, and her last name doesn’t rhyme with ‘gash’. She’s no development-deal starlet, either, having earned her chops playing bass for Tricky, and singing with The Young Punx.
Her debut single, Let This Be, starts off all grungy and minimalistic, then grows into a soaring, multilayered, trip-hoppy journey into… actually, we don’t know what it’s a soaring, multilayered, trip-hoppy journey into. The lyrics are cryptic – the phrase “gonna take your tears away” features, and also “don’t stop revealing”, which could mean anything. A fondness for Extreme Makeover: The Tear Duct Excision Edition, perhaps. But the song has lodged itself in our brain (we share the one), and we like the lyrical ambiguity.
We also like her video, which features face paint, hula hoops (the big spinny ones, not the small crunchy ones), a cat costume, a cupcake, and a cameo from her dog, Mr Benji. But not, as unlikely as it may seem, in a wacky way.
Let This Be comes with a remix, and piano-led ballad called Olympian which, despite being a piano-led ballad, is rather nice too.
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