Video: Little Girls, “Youth Tunes”
- story Sam Hockley-Smith
On one hand it makes sense that videos have lately been reflections of the music they accompany. They’re released quickly and are usually just collages of found footage. The video for Little Girls‘ “Youth Tunes” follows that same path, marrying legitimately disturbing footage (we are talking about the dude in the horse mask) to vocals that were sound like they were recorded underneath a dirty mattress. What sets this video apart is the hand-painted watercolors that cover many of the scenes, giving the entire video a more rustic, well-loved quality. Like this wasn’t just a bunch of footage found at archive.org or whatever, and was instead taken from a dusty box of VHS tapes and old projection reels.
Little Girls, “Heinz” (Artery Cover) MP3
- story Sam Hockley-Smith
- photo Matthew Koudys
If only we could have predicted that No Age would spawn millions—LITERALLY MILLIONS—of bands who liked to make music that sounds like it was recorded from the bottom of a cave/inside a blanket/plastic bag/butt. Little Girls have especially excelled at this, using the fact that you basically cannot hear a single word they’re saying to their advantage and turning their songs into primal and guttural murmurs over gut-rumbling guitar riffs. Without all these effects they could very well sound like Blink 182, but with them it’s scarier, like hearing monsters smack each other around from behind a thick wall. Little Girls tour dates after the jump.
Download: Little Girls, “Heinz”
Freeload: Little Girls, “Tambourine” + “Youth Tunes” MP3
- story THE FADER
Turns out that playing lo-fi goth jams at 33rpm when they’re meant to be played at 45 is the most depressing experience ever, as we discovered when we bought (yes, bought—Mexican Summer holler at us!) the super limited Little Girls 12-inch and forgot to flip the switch. We put it on the hi-fi and wondered, Why is this such a sludgy downer? And then we sat in a chair, sun streaking through the window, and pondered existence. Eventually spirit guide told us to speed things up and REVELATION! This whole new wave of Joy Division-y home recordings sound as exuberant as “My Girls.” Anyway, Little Girls. We’re not going to throw proclamations around like best new band since Blank Dogs because A) what does that even mean? and B) it’s more fun to let a band figure out what exactly it is that they are doing before declaring them anything. But these are jams—check them out, and if you’re down, envelop yourself in the Little Girls explosion, which includes the aforementioned 12-inch on Mexican Summer, an EP on Paper Bag Digital (of which these songs are from), and a 7-inch on Captured Tracks. That’s like a whole album’s worth of music.
Download: Little Girls, “Tambourine”
Download: Little Girls, “Youth Tunes”
