FR /
En déclarant à propos de leur premier EP: "Elles m’ont redonné foi en la musique.", James Murphy – tête pensante de LCD Soundsystem et du label DFA Records – place évidemment la barre très haut. Mermaid Chunky (Royaume-Uni) répond à ces attentes avec son mélange unique de folk médiévale, d’électropunk ludique et de cabaret à synthé.
Venues du Royaume-Uni, Freya Tate et Moina Moin nous apportent un projet artistique extravagant axé sur l’humour, le chaos et la créativité. Ce n’est pas un spectacle que présente Mermaid Chunky, mais une soirée dansante collective ! Fun fact: quand James Murphy a voulu signer Mermaid Chunky pour son label, le groupe est tombé des nues: "Nous ne savions pas vraiment qui il était. Pour être honnête, je pensais que LCD Soundsystem était un peu comme Ministry of Sound.", ont-elles déclaré au Guardian.
ENG /
It’s all in a name, sometimes. The danceable, costumed, curiosity rich duo of artists Freya Tate and Moina Moin are as imaginative as they profess. Or, to get more to the point, as we all need them to be.Freya and Moina are two visual artists and musicians from Stroud and South London, places where they importantly found communities of like minded people just as willing to chase down an idea to its possibly illogical conclusion. And it is in the collective and the idea of participation that Mermaid Chunky really clicks.
This is a party, a collective dance, made all the better withmore: people, ideas, layers, kick drums, recorders, saxophones, frogs.To wit, the album’s first track and first single, “Céilí,” named after a traditional Scottish or Irish social gathering and dance, which builds from a simple recorder line into a swelling, warm burst of major chord dance music. Goosebumps or check your pulse.Further down the rabbit hole, “Chaperone” is almost boardwalk electro, like Fischerspooner on a ferris wheel; “Frogsporn” and “Nature Girl” are mucky, trippy dirges filled with stalactites of synth and squelch; “Tiny Gymnast” is a kaleidoscopic waltz into the night. Hold onto your seats, ladies and gentlemen.
You might be wondering how DFA Records, all the way over in cynical Brooklyn, entered the picture. There was a day a few years ago, sun shining in full Springtime splendor, when James Murphy heard something while waiting for a coffee down the street from the office. It sounded simple yet deceptively complex: a dance track, but one where the one - that anchoring first beat in a measure - could be heard a thousand different ways. Frustrated and interested, he Shazamd the song, playing at the shop from an episode of Zakia’s Questing show on NTS, and brought it back to the office, where they all listened to it about fifty times. The song was “Friends,” from Mermaid Chunky’s VEST EP, released in 2020. It led to an invitation to open for LCD at Brixton Academy in 2022. Mermaid Chunky has also played live alongside The Comet Is Coming, Alabaster Deplume, Snapped Ankles, and many others.
Thus began the search for Mermaid Chunky. A quest it has been and a quest it will always be.