Dum Dum Girls: Too true (Sub Pop, 2014)

La cara más amable de unas Dum Dum Girls más dulcificadas que nunca…

“Dee Dee’s greatest gifts are in sound; her voice, her understanding of how classic pop-rock feels. “What a vivid sound/ What a vivid sound” goes the chorus to “Little Minx”. She sings about “a lavender haze” on “Are You Okay”, which is an apt enough description of her records. Too True, at least obliquely, is a record about sound itself, and the record is sparkling and beautiful, a glittering glaze of guitars and keyboards.
Her songs rarely feel like they’re about much, except the other great songs that touch on the same topics, but they are excellent studies. Savoring the details of her craftsmanship is still a pleasure—the middle eight of “Too True”, the shifts from minor to major in “In the Wake of You”. “Too True”‘s diaphanous sigh of a chorus and weightless synths sound like they could have come from the last Pains of Being Pure At Heart record, except she double-tracks her vocals into a near-subliminal choir of backing vocals, a touch that feels uniquely Dee Dee. She cares about effort, something that pokes through in one of the only personal-feeling lyrics on the record: “Why be good?/ Be beautiful and sad/ It’s all you’ve ever had,” she sings on “Evil Blooms”.
She’d rather be good. She could be great, though, and she hasn’t found her way there. “Rimbaud Eyes” is not a terribly euphonious phrase, and the way she sings it, which sounds more like “Bloomberg Eyes”, highlights the clunk of the phrasing. The song itself is generic, a driving pop-rocker with no stamp on it to distinguish it as Dee Dee’s, or anyone’s.
The final track, “Trouble Is My Name”, features one of her favorite sounds, the fuzzy, watery echo pedal strum of “Crimson and Clover”. She used it on End of Daze’s “Lord Knows”, where it had a similar eerie power, and it works just as well here. The lyrics are boilerplate, cake toppings—”And you said there was nothing you could do to make your bad turn good”—but they ring like prophecy in her mouth. There are clichés, and there are exalted clichés, and Dee Dee at her best reminds you of this distinction. If she wanted it, she seems to have the potential to knock out a professional world-beater like the HAIM record. But maybe she’s happier in the haze” (Pitchfork)

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Dum Dum Girls: He gets me high (Single, 2011)

 

Las Chicas Dum Dum (me encanta este nombre), editan nuevo disco este mes de Marzo de 2011. Se trata de un Ep titulado He gets me high, que estará compuesto de tres temas originales y una cover de un tema de The Smiths: There is a light that never goes out. En él, parece que las chicas han depurado algo las aristas Lo-Fi de su primer disco, al menos es lo que podemos vislumbrar tras oír su single, este He gets me high, que regalan para su difusión gratuita desde la página de su sello, haciéndolo algo más asequible y algo menos de baja intensidad. En la producción han colaborado Dee Dee Penny y Sun Rose Wagner (la mitad de The Raveonettes). Pincha en el enlace para escuchar/descargar el tema.

Dum Dum Girls – He gets me high (Single, 2011)

“Los Angeles-based Dum Dum Girls follow up their fuzzy,girl group-inspired 2010 Sub Pop debut I Will Be with He Gets Me High, an EP composed of three originals and a cover of the swooning Smiths’ classic “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out.” Lead singer/songwriter Dee Dee, Richard Gotteher (who also worked on I Will Be and is best known for penning “My Boyfriend’s Back” and “I Want Candy”), and Sune Rose Wagner of the Raveonettes produced the EP” (subpop.com)

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Dum Dum Girls: Blank girl (from I Will Be, 2010)

Dum Dum Girls: I will be (2010)

 

I will be es el título que ha elegido Dee Dee Penny para su álbum de debut como Dum Dum Girls. Relacionada con otras chicas de la escena de Brooklyn como Vivian Girls y casada con el líder de Crocodiles, era lógico que esta californiana concibiese un disco como éste: auténtico homenaje a los grupos de chicas sesenteros, al garaje y a los sonidos Post-punk. Partiendo de unos presupuestos de lo más Lo-Fi, aún sin ser serlo, como viene siendo habitual últimamente en muchos de los discos que oímos, el disco comienza de forma descarnada con la enérgica It only takes one night, canción de cánones garajeros; para continuar en la tónica con la provocativa Bhang bhang I´m a burnout. Oh mein me va también en la misma onda garajera que se rompe con Jail la la, canción más entroncada con sonidos Twee. Rest of our lives es quizás el tema en el que más se note la mano de su productor, Richard Gottehrer (Blondie, The Go-Go´s, Strangeloves, Raveonettes…), en cuanto a sonido semejante al de los daneses The Raveonettes. Blank girl suena algo así como un tema de Sonny and Cher al estilo Lo-Fi. Lo cierto es que hay mucho de cierto en ello, pero yo le encuentro más parecido con algún tema de The Pastels. Por cierto, la voz masculina es la de su pareja, Brandon Welchez, líder de Crocodiles, interesantísima banda de Shoegaze ya reseñada en The JangleBox. El disco acaba con tres temas en una línea garajera y animosa: I will be, Lines her eyes y Everybody´s out; y el tema que disuena absolutamente con el resto del álbum: Baby don´t go, versión -esta sí de Sonny and Cher– slow tempo con arreglos sencillos que se podría incluir en cualquier disco de Black Tambourine o de Raveonettes. Disco emocionalmente intenso que toca diversos palos musicales con pasmosa naturalidad y que se convierte en uno de los álbumes del año. Por cierto, el grupo estará el próximo 29 de mayo en el Primavera Sound de Barcelona. Para oír el disco, busca en comentarios.

Dum Dum Girls – I will be (2010)

“Those early 45s certainly created a wave of expectation and turned an everyday hobby into a full-time occupation, hence the decision to put together a proper band. The influence of Richard Gottehrer, aforementioned songwriter, most recently known for his work behind the desk on The Raveonettes Chain Gang Of Love, shouldn’t be underestimated, particularly on ‘Blank Girl’, a mellifluous duet between Penny and husband Welchez that sounds like a Sonny And Cher for the lo-fi generation, or indeed on album closer ‘Baby Don’t Go’, a sentimental ballad that echoes Florence Ballard as opposed to Florence Welch, the delectable Ms Penny tearfully cooing “I never had a mother, I hardly knew my dad, I’ve been in this town for 18 years, you’re the only boy I’ve had, please don’t go…” over a drifting semi-acoustic melody that’s not entirely fitting with the rest of this record’s overt sugar rush.
What is most apparent about I Will Be and the Dum Dum Girls’ ethos in general is their obvious debt to UK bands of the mid-Eighties, namely the likes of The Primitives, The Vaselines, The Shop Assistants and Talulah Gosh, except whereas those fitted the word ‘shambolic’ in more ways than one, Dum Dum Girls resonate with a polished sheen throughout most of this record. Opener ‘It Only Takes One Night’ could be Siouxsie cuddling up to Phil Spector, while ‘Bhang Bhang I’m A Burnout’ may extol the virtues of marijuana and pre-pubescent excess, but one can’t help feeling this is how Nancy Sinatra would have sounded had she been conceived twenty years later in Temple Meads with Bob Wratten rather than Lee Hazelwood as her soul mate.
Two of Penny/Gundred’s oldest songs ‘Jail La La’ and ‘Yours Alone’ both get a revamp here, the former benefiting from a cleaner, crisper shine while the latter finds itself enhanced by Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner on additional guitar, whilst more importantly providing subtle evidence that those early compositions had genuine mainstream crossover potential had the recordings been more professionally administered. The bittersweet ‘Lines Her Eyes’ and bubblegum pop of ‘Oh Mein M’ – sang entirely in German – continue the mostly upbeat tendencies of I Will Be, and even though the musical themes err on the repetitive side at times, not once does the record become tiresome, probably due to it being little over half an hour in duration and therefore over before its time to draw breath.
While unlikely to win many prizes for originality, I Will Be possesses likability in spades, not to mention a hefty selection of demurely constructed tunes that might delve into the past for inspiration but smile brightly into the future as a result. Dum in name but not in nature: I Will Be carries the hallmark of a winner every time” (drownedinsound.com)

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