Gina Birch of The Raincoats has shared a new solo single called ‘I Play My Bass Loud’ – listen below.
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The song will appear on the post-punk star’s debut studio album of the same name, which is due for release on February 24 via Jack White‘s Third Man Records (pre-order/pre-save here).
In a statement Birch described the ‘I Play My Bass Loud’ track as “a celebration of bass guitar as a voice, simple or layered, pounding or dancing or everything at once”.
“A celebration of a shout, a yell from the window, and the I am here, of a woman’s creativity on the bass guitar,” she continued. “I play my bass, my bass my bass my bass, I play my bass loud.”
Birch added: “There’s the whole thing about women playing their music and wanting to be heard, wanting acknowledgment or the space to do it.
“The bass is sometimes assigned as a lesser instrument, and yet because of reggae and the creativity of a lot of women players, it has always been a creative and phenomenal instrument.”
Accompanying the track is an official video by musician, performer and director Vice Cooler. Filmed in Los Angeles, California, the clip stars four female bassists along with Birch herself.
“Vice asked his long-term friend writer, dancer and choreographer, Oakland based, Brontez Purnell, to be the central character of the video,” Birch explained.
“There are five women bass players performing in the video, Emily Elhaj (Angel Olsen), Hazel Rigby (TBHQ), Mikki Itzigsohn (Small Wigs), Staz Lindes (The Paranoyds) and myself.”
She continued: “We shot the video in LA so the bass players in the video are not primarily the ones on the track apart from Emily Elhaj who plays bass with Angel Olson and Gina B.” Tune in above.
As for the forthcoming ‘I Play My Bass Loud’ LP on the whole, Birch said: “The album distils my years of musical, political and artistic life with these genre-breaking songs. It’s a personal diary using sounds and lyrics, full of fun, rage and storytelling.”
The record will feature the previously released singles ‘Wish I Was You’ and ‘Feminist Song’, the latter of which marked Birch’s first-ever solo song.
See the official cover artwork and full tracklist below.
01. ‘I Play My Bass Loud’
02. ‘And Then It Happened’
03. ‘Wish I Was You’
04. ‘Big Mouth’
05. ‘Pussy Riot’
06. ‘I Am Rage’
07. ‘I Will Never Wear Stilettos’
08. ‘Dance Like A Demon’
09. ‘Digging Down’
10. ‘Feminist Song’
11. ‘Let’s Go Crazy’
Birch is scheduled to embark on a UK headline tour this spring – check out the full itinerary below and find any remaining tickets here.
MARCH
21 – The Hope and Ruin, Brighton
22 – Oslo, London
24 – The Hug and Pint, Glasgow
25 – Whelan’s, Dublin
27 – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
Birch is the bassist and co-vocalist in The Raincoats, who formed in London in 1977. The band released four studio albums between 1979 and 1996, and played their most recent gig in 2019 (per Setlist.FM).
Among the post-punk outfit’s famous fans was the late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. “When I listen to The Raincoats I feel as if I’m a stowaway in an attic, violating and in the dark,” he wrote in the liner notes for a 1993 reissue of The Raincoats’ first album.
“Rather than listening to them I feel like I’m listening in on them. We’re together in the same old house and I have to be completely still or they will hear me spying from above and, if I get caught – everything will be ruined because it’s their thing.”
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