SEVEN NOISES

Since I reviewed the first Mayfair Set single, one of their members, Dee Dee, has signed up to Sub Pop with her main project Dum Dum Girls. And we know what this means: if there's one independent label in the world that still has a lot of prestige after 20 years of life is them, so she will be pretty popular by the time they publish her first album and the single with the same name in a couple of months. Blank Dogs, on his side, has also released his last album, Under and Under, that has also got him more popularity.
Now they come back again with a new EP, this time a six song 12' that takes a step further that mix of 80s pop they established with the first release. And if they keep on doing these beautiful songs together this side project will probably get to be as notorious as both their other projects. Junked!, the opening track is close to K Records and Dark House and Cease to Be sound like a proto-shoegaze demo. And in all these songs we can see how Dee Dee's voice sounds every time more comfortable and Blank Dog's bass lines some of the most imaginative since the British post-punk invasion.


The Mayfair Set - Dark House.mp3

And yes, the obvious thing to do after a post about Blank Dogs and another one about Dum Dum Girls was to talk about the project they both have in common and could one day beat their one-person bands in popularity. If Blank Dogs is dark, noisy and full of synths from the past and Dum Dum Girls songs are pop-punk Vivian Girls style they go somewhere else when they are together: They reduce the tempo and the noise to clean up the melody into a shinny and optimistic twee pop very K Records that makes the whole thing more accessible than anything they've done before.
If the non-stop creativity of these two workaholics was enough with their multiple releases they publish outside The Mayfair Set it looks they will not slowdown and will also be extremely productive here. This is their first ever release together published a couple of months ago but they already have plans to take out more singles for Woodsist, Zoo Music and, yes, Slumberland and a LP at some point this year. Keep on checking their myspace for future information.

Dum Dum Girls is just one girl, Dee Dee, which I don't really understand as this sounds like a full band. Know the Vivian Girls? So yes, Dum Dum Girls should be as famous as they are as friendship is not the only thing she shares with them because she performs a kind of garage-punk version of 50s /60s girl bands as well. The melodies are even catchier than theirs and the voice more melodic. Longhair, Mercury Mary and Let It Be Me, the three songs in this already sold out 7" single are three beautiful pop songs really inspired in these old vocal bands or even The Ramones as they are filtered through punk noise. She also have a 12" record out (hurry up, not many copies left) and a lot of releases coming this year: a couple of 7" singles, some splits and her first LP at some point next Autumn, all of them with beautiful covers of girls and girls love. Everything published through the every time more interesting labels Zoo Music, Captured Tracks, Hozac and Art Fag home of, between others, Blank Dogs, Woods, Box Elders, Brilliant Colors or Crocodiles.