FEATURE: Spotlight: PINS — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Debbie Ellis

PINS

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THERE are a few different reasons…

why I am including PINS in this feature. Usually, I include acts that are a bit newer, but I think the Manchester-fronted band warrant a lot more exposure, and they are on the precipice of hitting the big-time. Consisting singer/guitarist Faith Vern, guitarist Lois MacDonald, and bassist Kyoko Swan, PINS have been around for a few years, but they look set – I hope – to release a new album this year. Having already released E.P.s and a couple of albums, the PINS trio are fully in their stride, but I keep looking at festival line-ups that lack women on them. The argument, from organisers and a lot of ignorant music fans, is that there are not enough women to fill slots; most great bands are men and, so, festivals have to respond to demand. International Women’s Day was yesterday, and I saw so many posts bigging up female artists and highlighting the great work done by women in music. With bands like PINS capable of owning the stage and providing a storming set, I know they will headline a major festival very soon. I love their single, Aggrophobe, with Iggy Pop from 2017 and stormers like All Hail. The band are sensational and, according to their Twitter feed, they have some exciting news to share with us this week – might it be a new album?! This is what makes this feature timely: PINS are new to some people, and they need to keep their ears and eyes trained the way of this incredible trio.

By the time many people read this, the news from PINS will be out. Before I conclude, I want to bring in reviews from their two albums, and quote from an interview they provided to promote their E.P., Bad Thing. Girls Like Us arrived in 2013 and, as debuts go, it is pretty impressive! It is rare for a band to put out a debut that is tight but has so much going on; a blend of emotions and sounds with a distinct and fresh personality. I can recall hearing about Girls Like Us in 2013, and I could not think of anyone on the scene like them – to be fair, I still cannot compare anyone to PINS. Girls Like Us received some positive reviews. In their assessment, this is what Pitchfork had to say:

“Similarly, the band manage to obtain a skilful control of dynamics and pacing throughout the course of the record's wiry 33 minutes; meaning that it coalesces into far more than the sum of its parts. And in terms of standout points, the superb ‘Get With Me’ twists and turns around a memorable anthemic chorus, the aforementioned ‘Lost Lost Lost’ carries a superb understanding of pop music within its chameleonic DNA, whilst the spoken word ‘Velvet Morning’ – set against a kaleidoscope of backwards guitars, descending chord sequences and intricate drum work – is quite beautiful.

Influences carry scant relevance when they’re used appropriately. The truth is that any guitar music is heavy with influences spreading back over six decades. It is the way that you distil said influences that matter and when they’re sprinkled throughout the course of a record in carefully dropped combinations, they become an amalgam, a catalyst: their own. What PINS do is to turn those influences into their own sound: a synthesis that Walter White would approve of to create a record that genuinely strikes out PINS as a thrillingly new and unique voice in the contemporary British scene”.

Whilst a couple of the songs on the album include some less-than-striking lyrics, the energy, tightness and force you get from this band is clear! It would be two years before they followed up their debut, but they were definitely in demand on the live circuit. If you want to catch them this year, check out if they are heading your way. I think PINS’ instant appeal came from the fact that there was a gap in the market in 2013, and many people hooked on to Girls Like Us. In 2015, they put out the stunning Wild Nights. Perhaps a little stronger than their debut, there were some great reviews for Wild Nights. Apart from a few tin-eared critics (I’m looking at Pitchfork!), most people were on board with another cracking album. The Line of Best Fit were eager to (all) hail PINS:

“Fear not though, PINS haven’t lost their bite. Certainly their second effort eschews aggression for aggressions’ sake – but rather than wasting their breath howling and rallying, the band whip up tension in order to harden their edges.

“House of Love” has a dusty, almost western feel which is built around a monotonous bassline and Holgate’s deadpan intone of: “Before you leave this house of love, take more, it’s what you came here for.” Later, “Oh Lord” walks a wire stretched to breaking point before insistent bass and angular guitars disintegrate into a messy climax.

The clamorous moments are not over-laboured, however. Wild Nights is a much more concentrated effort than its predecessor: the songs here are streamlined and longer than on their debut, yet the album itself is shorter. The noise-based, jammy interludes that interspersed Girls Like Us have been abandoned.

In 2012, PINS were put together by Holgate who longed to be in a band without having to be the token female member, but a real bond was forged between the girls over a love of Hole, The Jesus and Mary Chain and Best Coast records. Their second album is ultimately the sound of the band exploring the myriad influences that make up their sonics, in doing so realising who they are and focusing bloody-mindedly on driving the point home”.

I like the fact that PINS were formed because of a desire to have an all-female force, rather than there being one woman surrounded by men. There are all-female groups at the moment – including The Big Moon, and The Staves -, but not a whole lot. I think PINS have actually inspired a lot of other women to form bands, not that there is anything wrong with a male band with a female lead. There are some great interviews online with PINS, but I wanted to source from a Skiddle interview of 2018. The band were promoting their Bad Thing E.P. and, among other things, they talked about working with Iggy Pop. They were also asked about releasing music on their own label:

“Tell us a bit about your label Haus of PINS?

That's pretty much something we started as soon as we started the band because we wanted to release our own first single, which was called 'Eleventh Hour'. We hadn't really got into it with any labels at that point, different people we're asking us if they could put it out for us, but we didn't want to be tied down to something so early because we'd literally played about three gigs.

PHOTO CREDIT: Asupremeshot

So we decided - in true PINS fashion - just to make our own label and the first thing we released was our own music. After that, we spoke to the bands we met while we were out touring and if any of them wanted to put something out we would take it and create the artwork and everything.

Why did you create your own label? Is it important to you to be able to put your own music out?

Yeah! I think it's good because there needs to be a stepping stone between being a band that's completely alone and being a band that's on a label. You need that in between, where you're not tidied down to being in a contract but you can still release some music - it was just enjoyable to work with other bands. We've kind of gone full circle because we released the record we just did on Haus of PINS, so we've gone from Haus of PINS, to being on a label, back to Haus of PINS again.

Is there a particular reason you went from releasing music on a label to going back to putting it out yourself?

I think it was just about... because we were in between everything and not sure what the next step should be, we just thought, "well, let's do what we usually do and take back the control and do it out own way", because then we know everything that's happening with the release and there's no extra people involved - to an extent anyway.

Obviously we're fortunate enough to have radio people now, and press people, but with the actual record that was just completely down to us. The artwork, what songs went on it, when it was released, what video would go with it. So we just wanted to hold the reigns again for a little while.

Where there any particular influences on the new Bad Things EP?

I think the whole thing just took more of an electronic influence. That was our first introduction to having drum pads and I think they're used on every song. So Sophie has drum pads and samples now, which she didn't have before. I think that was the main thing that's made it sound a little bit different to what we were doing before. I can't think of a band I could say it was specifically influenced by, just generally more electronic sounds.

There's a Joy Division song on there. I wouldn't say that it necessarily stayed true to the Dead Souls song, but maybe there's a bit of a New Order influence. I don't know if you knew, but I think it's on the Unknown Pleasures Joy Division album, they made like spray sounds. I don't know whether they actually used a can of aerosol into the microphone for that, so it's like "chh chh", so we recorded or own version and made a sample of that, we put that all over the record too.

Was there a particular influence for the EP artwork? It's very striking and bold, is that what you were aiming for?

Well, we always aim for timeless - but we don't always get it right - that's always the aim. Just something bright and colourful because everything's always been so dark before. We just wanted to do something a little bit more cheeky with this. Something that says, "Yep! We're here, we're doing this now, deal with it." I guess we wanted to be a bit sassy with it!”.

I have been a fan of PINS before, but I know there are those who have not discovered them yet. I definitely feel they are one of the bands to watch in 2020 and, whatever news it is they have to announce next week – whether it is a new track or album -, that will only increase the interest their way. I am looking forward to seeing what comes next, and I know 2020 will be very busy for PINS. Let’s hope there are festival dates, and that we get to see a lot of them on the road. Whatever is going down this week, it is an exciting…