DIY punk witches Dream Nails have scooped the 2019 LOUD WOMEN Hercury Prize for their album ‘Take Up Space’ – available on Bandcamp.
The prize was announced in a ridiculous DIY ceremony broadcast on Facebook live, by Cassie and her son Dylan.
The Hercury Prize is judged by Team LOUD WOMEN, who whittled down a Top 12 from nearly one hundred albums by UK-based self-identified female and non-binary artists released in the twelve months from July 2018: that’s albums released on any format, with any level of industry distribution. This year’s shortlist was:
Big Joanie – Sistahs (Nov, 2018)
Brix & the Extricated – Breaking State (Oct, 2018)
Desperate Journalist – In Search of the Miraculous (Feb, 2019)
Dream Nails – Take Up Space (Jan, 2019)
Neneh Cherry – Broken Politics (Oct, 2018)
Grace Petrie – Queer as Folk (Sept, 2018)
Little Simz – Grey Area (March, 2019)
Muncie Girls – Fixed Ideals (Aug, 2018)
Petrol Girls – Cut and Stitch (May, 2019)
Queen Zee – Queen Zee (Feb, 2019)
She Makes War – Brace for Impact (Oct, 2018)
Trash Kit – Horizon (Jul, 2019)
Dream Nails accepted their award on tour in Madrid!
Drumroll please as we can finally announce the full 22 track listing for the hotly-anticipated LOUD WOMEN Volume Two compilation album, which will be launched 14 September 2019 at LOUD WOMEN Fest 4!
1
The Franklys
Not Guilty
2
The Txlips
The Lost One
3
I, Doris
The Girl From Clapham
4
The Menstrual Cramps
No Means No
5
The Cleopatras
Forty
6
LIINES
Never Wanted This
7
Pussyliquor
My Body My Choice
8
Pleasure Venom
Hive
9
ARXX
Iron Lung
10
Ms Mohammed
Never Again
11
The Baby Seals
It’s Not About the Money, Honey
12
Peach Club
Not Your Girl
13
T-Bitch
Frighty Nighty
14
Jemma Freeman & The Cosmic Something
Someone Else to Blame
15
Jelly Cleaver
Yarl’s Wood
16
Secondhand Underpants
The Anthem
17
Gaptooth
Post-Patriarchy Disco
18
Vaginas, What Else?
Loose Tile
19
GGAllan Partridge
I Feel Lobe
20
Hurtling
Don’t Know Us
21
Personal Best
Radio
22
Bridget Hart
Let Loose Lucy
The CD is available to pre-order now for just £5 from our Bandcamp page – and as a thank you for pre-ordering, when the CD releases after 14 Sept we’ll also send you a copy of Volume One! So that’s 42 of the loudest of loud women, all for a cheeky fiver.
“Scabrous riffs, inventive songcraft and full force in-your-face woman power from all bands involved. Loud Women festival shows up the mainstream by exhibiting the very best of women in rock.”
– Paula Frost, Vive Le Rock
“LOUD WOMEN are inspiring social change”
– Kerrang!
“At a time of toxic masculinity in the industry, platforms like Loud Women are a brilliant, and brazen, beacon of hope shining a floodlight on marginalised musicians. Turn it up LOUD.“
As a thank you for pre-ordering, for every Volume Two CD you order, we’ll also send you a copy of Volume One! So that’s 42 of the loudest of loud women, all for a cheeky fiver.
14 Sept 2019 at London’s Dome and Boston Music Room looks set to see the biggest (and best?) LOUD WOMEN Fest yet! Here’s the news we’ve been dying to tell you for months … our final* lineup, in no particular order …
Plus afterparty DJs, food, zines, records, and all manner of fun things we’ve not even thought up yet – get in touch with us on loudwomenclub@gmail.com if you’d like to get involved!
Earlybird tickets are now sold out but you can still grab regular advanced tickets from here.
*I mean, as final as anything is that could possibly have slight changes here and there in cases of sickness, injury, best friends throwing last-minute weddings, that sort of thing. But pretty damn final I’d say!
LOUD WOMEN Fest 4 is nearly 3 months away, so it’s time to announce the next wave of awesome bands booked to play! Stand by your internets on Friday lunchtime and we’ll reveal a further 8 acts that will be rocking our worlds come 14 Sept at The Dome, London.
The 2018 LOUD WOMEN album of the year is therefore shared by five artists; and if that wasn’t enough we’ve inaugurated a spanking new LOUD WOMEN People’s Vote Readers’ Choice Award chosen by LOUD WOMEN readers themselves (who are clearly better at making decisions!)
Without giving too much way at this stage let’s just say that it’s been a good year for block capitals: here goes!
With stellar gigs performed all over the London-based DIY scene that they call home and extensive radio play on shows like BBC Music Introducing, it’s been a big year for Big Joanie. The feminist punk trio have certainly ended 2018 with a bang thanks to the acclaim that’s already been given to their debut album Sistahs…By allowing their true feelings to be at the forefront of their songwriting, the band create tracks that truly empower the listener; not only to rebel but to check their own activism, to continue growing, and to do better. [Read full review here]
“An irrepressible sense of fun runs through Tits and Nails, in spite of everything its lyrics address. GUTTFULL has created a brilliant and uncompromising summation of the trials of being ‘other’ in 2018 and they’re ready to shout down their oppressors – with wit and with groove.” [Read more from this review]
They write songs which are both silly and serious, and they attack them (as well as each other) playfully. You can make a case for pretension in art, but there’s none with ILL; like so many of the best bands they seem like a gang you’d love to join, but ILL go one better and make you feel like you’d be welcome: friendly if not quite family-friendly (unless the family in question is more Addams than Partridge, perhaps). … A perfect storm of enigma, whimsy and controlled violence, and a genre-straddling state-of-the-nation address. With added bear growls. [Read more from this review]
‘Long-awaited’ might be a cliché, but in the case of LIINES‘ debut album, it’s a fitting description for a band that’s evolved steadily from fin-de-siecle Manc post-riot grrrl stalwarts Hooker: the tightest, heaviest rhythm section in DIY supports Zoe McVeigh’s emotional vocals and haiku-like songwriting, together conjuring an atmosphere of taut, claustrophobic menace like a UK postpunk time capsule. [Read more from this review]
A perfect ten tracks of no wave-disco electropop on a brilliant debut album from this Norwich duo. Described by The Guardian as “Thrillingly chilly, perfectly funky, no-wave straight out of early 80’s NYC…except that Sink Ya Teeth are a duo from Norwich. In a different era they’d have been all over TOTP” 4/5
The LOUD WOMEN People’s Vote Readers’ Choice Award:
The Menstrual Cramps is an anti-capitalist feminist band, therefore expect direct attacks on Tories, Neo-Nazis, big brands, business owners, famous idols who shouldn’t be idols anymore, and of course, “boyz-who-will-be-boyz”. The songs are so catchy that half of the album will get stuck in your head after giving one listen to the whole album. They produce music rapidly, though diligently. This rapidity actually shows itself in the guitars as fast riffs, playful strokes and abrupt small silences and it just sounds so good and steady. [Read more from this review]
The Top Twenty in full:
Big Joanie – Sistahs
The Breeders – All Nerve
Colour Me Wednesday – Counting Pennies in the Afterlife
Doe – Grow Into It
Dream Wife – Dream Wife
ILL – We Are ILL
GUTTFULL – Tits and Nails
Gwenno – Le Kov
The Menstrual Cramps – Free Bleedin’
Fightmilk – Not With That Attitude
LIINES – Stop/Start
Janelle Monae – Dirty Computer
Muncie Girls – Fixed Ideals
Grace Petrie – Queer As Folk
Screaming Females – All At Once
She Makes War – Brace For Impact
Shopping – The Official Body
Sink Ya Teeth – Sink Ya Teeth
Skinny Girl Diet – Ideal Woman
The Twistettes – A Strange Play
For all those who support putting women on stage, and turning up the volume
