New music review with Bikini Body and NEXT TO NADA

Our weekly fix of the best new music as Julia Mason (aka The Decibel Decoder) brings us her review of new singles from Bikini Body Mr Tinnitus and NEXT TO NADA Whine, Lips

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Artist: Bikini Body

Track: Mr Tinnitus

Credit Rory Barnes

Edinburgh based Bikini Body have announced their debut EP Weird Party, the first release on Optimo Music Rocks! label. To celebrate the announcement the 5-piece have released their new single Mr Tinnitus. 

This is party central from the off. Disco and funk are mixed in with the punky vocals. It sets off at pace and to be honest never slows until the final note. The cowbells are a perfect addition adding to the overall vibe. If you are suffering from mid-winter blues just get Mr Tinnitus into your ears and I guarantee you will be grooving by the end!

The band shared the following about their upcoming EP, and the new single: “Weird Party is a collection of tried and tested Post-Funk Punk tracks, each with a personality that evokes the oddballs and tearaways you met at that weird house party the other week.  Mr Tinnitus leads the record with disco doggerel and plenty of cowbell, signalling our desire to be dancier than post-punk and punkier than dance. Personal experience of disappointing encounters, chauvinist male stereotypes and gendered ideals pepper the remaining tracks without compromising the irresistible groove inherent to the Bikini Body sound. We made this record with our good friend and intuitive producer, Chris McCrory, at Green Door Studio in Glasgow. Capturing the live sound was at the heart of the recording process, and it is a joy to finally usher these songs from the dancefloor to your turntable. The release was mastered by the legendary Bob Weston.”

Glasgow based club Optimo always booked live acts rather than DJs and over the years it ran as a weekly club and put on literally hundreds of bands. With a load of bands approaching them to collaborate, the time felt right to start an offshoot label purely dedicated to bands. And what a joyous start to their journey with Mr Tinnitus by Bikini Body.  Now where did I put my cowbell?

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Artist: NEXT TO NADA

Track: Whine, Lips

Credit Espey Photography

NEXT TO NADA share new single Whine, Lips. It’s part of a two-song EP Whine // Moths which will be released on 15 March. The noisy 4-piece have created a track full of dark intensity yet it also unleashes pent up frustration. 

The chaotic and off kilter vibes shift in pace and intensity throughout the track. On first listen you have no idea where Whine, Lips is going, which of course adds to the thrill. The vocal begins calmly enough but soon heads into crazed territory. The guitars are at times wild, as if released and the overall soundscape is one of story-telling, albeit in the music.

London based NEXT TO NADA write from a personal place, railing against capitalist routine. Gigi Ruckus, the lyricist and primary writer for these two tracks, describes Whine, Lips as “... a self-lament / piss-take that I wrote whilst in a particularly lengthy period of self-destructive behaviour. Dissociation, jealousy, unease, apprehension and defeatism were all running amok in the closed quarters of a brain - leading to (what feels like) a tiresome, vicious circle of poor coping mechanisms and pessimism. The lyrics of the song mirror this by swapping from the hyperbolic self-loathing and mania of the verses, to the sarcastic acknowledgement in the choruses that self pity and arrogance lies at the heart of it all.”

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