FEATURE:
Revisiting…
Dream Wife - So When You Gonna…
_________
IN preparation for…
a new album by Dream Wife, I wanted to return to their previous/current one. The third album from Alice Go, Rakel Mjöll, Bella Podpadec arrives on 9th June. Social Lubrication is going to be among the best albums of this year I can feel. In terms of material, singles such as Orbit, and Hot (Don’t Date a Musician) are among the best cuts of Dream Wife’s career so far. The London-based (originally from Brighton) band are among the most important and phenomenal we have. Following from their eponymous debut album of 2018 – which got positive reviews for the most part -, they followed it up with the amazing So When You Gonna… Another ‘pandemic album’, it was released on 3rd July, 2020. Like all artists who release an album, that need to tour it was crucial. Dream Wife were a bit restricted. That is not going to be the case with their approaching third album. They will be able to take that on the road for sure! In spite of the fact that So When You Gonna... came out in 2020, it still resonated and found a big fanbase. Reaching eighteen in the U.K., it was also accompanied by some terrific reviews. I shall come to a couple of those. First, I want to highlight an interview with the band from last year. There was not a lot of promotion around the album at the time. I think there may have bene a couple of press interviews and some online stuff but, for such a terrific trio, I thought that more big publications and websites would have come their way.
Via Zoom, Rakel Mjöll spoke with The Brighton Source about what was coming next for Dream Wife. It is clear that So When You Gonna... struck a chord with so many people. A hugely celebrated album, it must have been a relief to get it on the road:
“After releasing their second album ‘So When You Gonna…’ during the formidable first peak of the pandemic, Dream Wife have now embarked on a long-awaited UK tour. They’ve also found time speak to SOURCE, which is why I’m peering through a box-like window on a laptop that’s seen far better days, meticulously checking for visible remainders of this morning’s breakfast on my jumper. This is the all-too-familiar anxiety of the Zoom call, a ritual that only a post-pandemic society could have become accustomed to. Within a few moments Dream Wife’s Rakel Mjöll greets me with a view of a small, homespun practice space in London.
I’m eager to discuss all that’s on the horizon for Rakel and her bandmates, guitarist Alice Go and bass player Bella Podpadec, in the coming months. So I plunge straight in with questions about the tour, which is headed to Brighton where the punk rock/indie trio originally formed.
Rakel: “Our whole album is about our love for live music. It was weird releasing an album during a time when live music wasn’t an option. It’s really great to finally get to take these songs out on the road and see them come to life. This band is very much a live band, we completely thrive off and are inspired musically by a live show setting and the energy and the magic that happens. It inspires most of our music and how we approach creativity.”
As we talk, there’s an almost childlike sense of elation that cascades out of each response. The current tour seems like a cathartic transformation for the group after the perpetual uncertainty of the pandemic. It has been a heavy weight on many musicians, especially those who seek inspiration in the energy of live performance. The chance to reconnect and share their new songs with a live audience was a long time coming, with the band first returning to festival stages last summer.
Rakel: “It was a huge contrast to our debut album where the first year we played 120 shows, and 155 the year after. We were consistently in a van or at an airport and just playing these shows, often not even realising what city we were in, but that was the beauty of it all. We’re not really a band that can go to a cabin for a month and write a rock album, it’s a lot better for us being inspired by people.”
Despite the postponed tour, ‘So When You Gonna…’ reached #18 in the UK Album Chart and was named one of Rough Trade’s Top 10 Albums of 2020. The record, which was produced by an all female/non-binary engineering team, was flawlessly mixed and produced by Italian record producer Marta Salogni.
Rakel: “We chose Marta because she was simply the best. We were thrilled to work with her. We had the studio for a month and it was such a beautiful time we spent together, it felt really safe which is important when you’re creating something. It’s nice to be able to feel vulnerable whilst also being loud, and to work with people that make you excited to show up. We hired Grace Banks as the engineer and the tracks were mastered by Heather Kedgeree in New York. All these people were incredibly talented in their own fields and we felt so honoured and blessed to work with them.”
“It’s also just really important to practice what you preach, and we speak a lot about visibility. But it’s one thing talking about it and it’s another doing it. I mean hiring people that you believe in and speaking openly about how only 3-4% of western albums currently being produced have a non-binary or female producer on it. That’s such a small number and I think it’s really important to highlight that this is something that really needs to change. It’s no different to how consumers want to change things, like where you buy, where you shop, it’s the same with how you make albums. It’s about how you can contribute to these changes as well”.
I would urge people to revisit So When You Gonna... ahead of the release of Social Lubrication. Their upcoming third album might be the strongest yet! Dream Wife have got stronger and more confident with each album. Growing in terms of their songwriting, I do have a lot of love for Dream Wife and So When You Gonna... The latter is a tremendous album that I want people to have a listen to. This is what NME wrote in their review:
“Brighton trio Dream Wife, who last year headlined one of NME’s Girls To The Front gigs – showcases for female and non-binary artists – have never taken anyone’s shit, and they’re not about to start now. Their stellar self-titled 2018 debut album was stuffed with feminist punk anthems and Rakel Mjöll (vocals), Alice Go (guitar) and Bella Podpadec (bass) have delivered an outspoken, subversive follow-up.
‘Sports!’ is a perfect album opener. With a discordant guitar riff, Mjöll comes in with “fuck sorry / fuck please will you so kindly start again”. It is a call-to-action for womxn everywhere – stop apologising for what you do, and just do it.
‘Sports!’ is an urgent and adrenaline-fuelled song, layered with many different meanings and dripping with sarcasm. The song is an ode to the time the band spent together while writing this record, expelling some of their post-tour energy after spending nearly two years shouting and playing crashing guitars on stages across the world. It’s a playful track full of sport clichés, as Mjöll sings “put your eye on the ball when it’s in your court”, with the song exploring the sexist trope of male condescension in sport. “Do you even play this sport?” she asks ironically.
The song’s hook sees her repeat “put your money where your mouth is” – and Dream Wife certainly do that. The band have been outspoken about the gender inequalities in the music industry and wider world since their inception, and worked with an all-female recording team for ‘So When You Gonna..’., including producer and mixer Marta Salogni (who’s helmed projects from Björk, Holly Herndon and FKA Twigs).
The team of womxn who supported this album can be heard throughout the record – it just sounds organic and comfortable. “It was amazing to work with this community of womxn who are supporting each other in an industry that is so male-dominated, bassist Bella Podpadec has said in a statement. “It was a way of us practicing what we preach.”
‘So When You Gonna…’ is not all heavy garage-punk, though. Though the album is made up of shorter, punchy tracks, it is filled, too, with more emotional, quieter heartfelt moments too, which switches from riot grrrl band to indie anthems. The emotional crux of the album occurs on ‘Temporary’, a song about miscarriage: “If the heartbeat fails / Know I’m here / With a full embrace / How is it to love and live temporary?” It’s refreshing to see a topic usually so surrounded in shame sung about so openly, the band not shying away from describing the pain miscarriage causes, but also uplifting the womxn who have experienced it. “With every loss, how do you carry through? / Know you’re brave to jump back into / I’ll applaud it”.
On ‘After The Rain’ they address abortion, another taboo and difficult topic. As stories of reproductive justice and abortion rights dominate headlines, Mjöll lay herself bare, revealing “I’m feeling very honest today” on the first line of the song. Following in a similar vein to that of the band’s 2017 song ‘Somebody’, which explored sexual assault, the music slowly crescendos as Mjöll cries out: “It’s my choice, my life / iI’s my body, my right”.
The band are the queens of vocal asides, a fact no more apparent than on the title track, which sees spoken-word missive overlap with electrifying screamed vocals. “Pull me closer” Mjöll sings before the whispered response: “just a little bit.” Here they’re telling womxn to speak up for what they want, to be unashamed, direct and fully communicate their desires. She repeats the lyric “so when you gonna kiss me?” over and over, until at the end, we get a classic Mjöll vocal aside in the punchline: “Too bad they were a bad kisser.”
So ‘When You Gonna..’ is also a call out to a disenfranchised generation. Dream Wife challenge the next generation of singers, producers, mixers, writers, guitarists, filmmakers and more to just do it. “You do you / Don’t waste your time with fools who don’t value you”. At its core, the album is about stopping waiting and starting doing, with a ‘now or never’ attitude. On ‘RH RN’ – a shortened version of the phrase ‘right here, right now’ – the band repeat “We are the youngest we will ever be / We are the oldest we have ever been / Right here right now”. It’s a call to live in the present, an invitation to stop waiting for perfection and to use your talents as best you can.
With a mixture of classic punk and dance-pop, Dream Wife also hark back to the early New York sound of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, with a heavy dollop of riot grrrl attitude. The band have extended the ‘girls to the front’ ethos into every part of themselves, from production to music to live performances. With so much honesty packed into the 11 tracks, the album is an invitation and a challenge to go after what you want – without apologising for it”.
I will end with a glowing review from The Line of Best Fit. They highlight the wit, variation, importance and urgency of an album from a trio who were definitely breaking through. Building on the promise of their eponymous 2018 debut album, it is a shame that the pandemic curtailed any plans to embark on a big tour and solidify their reputation as one of Britain’s best live bands. In months since, they have definitely confirmed that. With another album due soon, you will want to catch them if you can:
“Dream Wife is a band built on guts – an art school experiment that turned into something special, because they wanted it to and dared to run with it. Whilst not as loud or as brash as their self-titled debut, So When You Gonna… is a record that shows Dream Wife bolder than ever, asking questions and opening doors that few are willing to look at. It asks you what you want and challenges you to go after it.
The opening track, and lead single, "Sports!" is a playful ode to moments spent together in between writing the record, as well as a satire on the seriousness with which people approach sports, with vocalist Rakel Mjöll toying with clichés of sport-talk, singing “dropping balls / missing goals” and “do you even play this sport?” – sarcasm dripping from every word. It’s heart lying in the classic sexist condescension of men explaining sports to women.
"Hasta La Vista" is more subdued in tone, but equally delightful. “It’s about accepting and embracing change and being thankful to what was and what is today” explain Dream Wife, something they found themselves grappling with when returning home after seemingly endless touring in 2018. It’s a far poppier song than any of their previous output – less riot grrrl, more Blondie – but with a very Dream Wife groove. As they sing “hasta la vista baby / ciao / goodbye now”, it feels like a clearing out of old patterns, and a quiet thank you to those same things.
"Temporary" is the warm, emotional peak of the record – it’s a tender song written for a friend of the band who had a series of miscarriages. Mjöll softly sings “know I’m here with a full embrace”, holding loving space for that grief, whilst also gently assuring that “you're brave to jump back into it” and hold onto hope after heartbreak. The band ask intimate, unanswerable questions of “how is it to love and live” when that being is so temporary, inviting listeners to explore their own experiences of loss – whatever that may be.
It’s the album’s titular track that stands out. Coming in fast screaming “WHEN YOU GONNA KISS ME?” – a true punk song, both in sound and sentiment. The band say it is about “wholehearted consent” and “communicating your desires” rather than remaining timid and quiet about what you’re feeling. They are unabashed in expressing their attraction, singing “words begin to fall out of your mouth / what a lovely mouth” and in asking for more. “Pull me closer (just a little bit closer) / by the waist and move me higher up” – it’s direct, specific, and unapologetic for it.
There are one or two slightly lacklustre moments, such as "Hold On Me", which doesn’t feel like it belongs, but they are far outnumbered and outshined by the groove of songs like "Old Flame" and the smart, questioning lyrics of "Validation". It’s a record that challenges complacency – in our personal lives, and in the wider world – and reaffirms Dream Wife’s ‘girls to the front’ ethos. Whilst not as wild as their previous output, So When You Gonna… is as topical and as empowering as the band have ever been. “Fuck sorry / fuck please” when are you going to go after what you want without apologising for it?”.
If you have not heard the brilliant So When You Gonna…, then go and listen to it now. You can pre-order Social Lubrication. I am predicting it will be among the best-reviewed albums of this year. The phenomenal Dream Wife need to be in your life! Such an awesome and essential force, they provided their brilliance through So When You Gonna… This is a remarkable album that you…
HAVE to revisit.