Man/Woman/Chainsaw Sound Sharper Than Ever With ‘Grow a Tongue in Time’

There’s been a lot going on recently with Man/Woman/Chainsaw. The quintet sprung out of the lively South London scene with some very clear ideas already in mind, throwing the equivalent of a musical grenade into the ever murkier waters of whatever it is that is currently being defined as post-punk. 

This band clearly has a definition of their own to offer, which takes them rather farther away from the type of sound that gets labelled as post-punk as a norm – although they most certainly embody the fundamental aspects of the punk spirit, such as a certain DIY attitude and an innate skill for tearing up the stage in the kind of small grassroots venue that represents the heart of the London scene. 

Add to that the confidence to not seek the limelight – strong in the certainty that the limelight would find them eventually – and to cultivate the rather specific idiosyncrasies of their musical voice into something that contain plenty of personality and confidence alike, and it is not a surprise that they have come as far as they have, as quickly as they have. With a hundred live gigs under their belt and triumphant festival appearances – the most recent at Green Man – they have now announced their debut EP, ‘Eazy Peazy’, to be released in November.

Their latest single, ‘Grow a Tongue in Time’, is a sneak peek into what the record is going to look like, following hot on the heels of Summer release ‘Ode to Clio’. There are some threads which run through both tracks, first and foremost the well-measured clash of harmony and dissonance, which has become in many ways a trademark of this band; and then the distinctive role played by the violin, which was at the heart of the earlier single and is almost the glue holding this new track together, adding a disquieting element which keeps the listener on edge for the whole duration. There is almost a duet in this track between the elegant musical line of the vocals and the harsher, more scattered one of the violin, which is most apparent immediately after the opening bar, but continues throughout, providing a backbone to the song as a whole. All other instruments play around and in service to this central dynamic; there are moments which feel like the ebb of a tide, when the sound swells and seems about to explode, but the explosion never happens, and the song peters out, in a perfect reproduction of the frustration channelled by the lyrics. It has been described, after all, by the band as “a stream-of-consciousness look at jealousy, desire and self-pity”, and there is something narrative to its structure that fully conveys the core of this statement.

That narrative element, more than anything else, brings to mind the likes of Wunderhorse, especially in their early-day incarnation, whereas there is something in the vocals and, especially in this slower, less noisy track, in the general atmosphere that is reminiscent of the most recent output from Sorry – another London band with a very clear agenda, which has trodden many of the same stages on which Man/Woman/Chainsaw have built their voice. In contrast with the band’s elegant command of sharp-edged noise, exemplified in their past releases, this track is sharp in a very different way, relying on a subtler form of dissonance and on the ability to evoke a more thinly-veiled but perhaps more effective form of discomfort in the listener. The feelings summoned by the lyrics are familiar, but are also of the kind that is often wilfully ignored. The almost creaky sound achieved at one point by the violin may feel a little like the unsteady wavering of self-esteem the song is so clever at portraying. The end result is unsettling because it’s musically unexpected and emotionally familiar, at the same time: far from an easy end goal to strive for.

The alternative music scene, and contemporary music as a whole, is in desperate need of this type of ambition and this type of lateral thinking. There’s a space for the unsettling in music that demands to be filled, and tracks like this are at long last fulfilling that need.

 

Chiara Strazzulla

@cstrazzull

Image: ‘Grow a Tongue in Time’ Official Single Cover