It is wholly fitting that I am writing this review while reading multiple Facebook posts: all about the death of the British high street synonymous with the de-institutionalisation and the facelessness of broken Britain.
Singer-songwriter Gemma Rogers packs a whole 21st Century kitchen sink drama into her latest four track EP No Future, which barely clocks in at a quarter of an hour. It has veritable multiple influences – some mellifluous, others deliberately harsh by way of the gritty side of the 2011 film Attack The Block – that connect with the Spotify-saturated youth of today.
Working with producers EAMES, Gareth Ashton (The Verve, Rolling Stones, Tina Turner) and Mike Tournier (of dance legends Fluke); she projects an in-your-face sound to enhance her whiplash sense of catharsis.
The title track commences with an early PIL-like industrial vibe with a Spaghetti Western wake-up twang. Its sinister sensuality brings to mind the reluctant opening of high-rise curtains – with an absolute zero sense of Wake Up Boo!. With drums en masse in the background and a chanting chorus, it evolves into a cautionary-sounding motorik-like groove with Gemma inspiring herself and the listener to literally look up to a world beyond a brutalist cityscape. The X-Ray Spex-like Never Have I Ever is the EP’s hammer home crux – a biting critique on normalisation of sexual violence directed at women.
“I thought it was worth exploring and comparing my attitude to men by looking at things I’ve never done or said to a man, she says, Things that would seem bizarre or wrong; but these bizarre or wrong actions from a man to a woman are somehow normalised by some.“
The remainder of The EP features the singles DKU ( Death Knocked Up) and Coming In From The Top. The tongue-rolling DKU admiringly evokes a shopping list of everyday information overload seemingly told through the eyes of a pusher-driven Elektra-type assassin. The Libertines-like Coming From The Top is an uneasy but brilliant depiction of a political hierarchy solely focused on the corridors of power with nary a say for the little man.
For this EP, Gemma has collaborated with Ode to Records, a new sister label of punk stable Holy Dotage Records responsible for recent vinyl releases by punk legends SPIZZENERGI and fast rising duo Voodoo Radio.
