Memorials: Women Against the Bomb/Tramps! LP

The two albums ‘Tramps!’ and ‘Women Against The Bomb’ were originally conceived as film soundtracks, and while they still adhere to that original concept, the band’s desire to play live and make music outside of soundtracks mean both albums can be viewed independently from the films with which they are associated. Verity and Matthew met in 2007 when they were both on the label Too Pure – Verity with Electrelane and Matthew with It Hugs Back. In 2010 WIRE asked Matthew to join the band to fill their vacant guitarist role. Throughout the 2010s Verity and Matthew collaborated when they got the chance, and in 2020 they decided to start working together on soundtracks - it was something they were both doing individually and both had become tired of working alone. Both are songwriters and multi-instrumentalists, both have experience in electronic music production, and between them they play a wide range of instruments. The two soundtracks which make up ‘Music For Film’ came along in 2021 and gave them a focus for working on something together, and what had been just a vague idea of collaborating became a matter of getting a lot of music written and recorded in a short space of time, across a range of styles. In a way they formed a band in reverse. They didn’t have any intention of starting a band when they did the soundtracks together, but after a screening of ‘Women Against The Bomb’ in Paris they were offered a gig, and that became the catalyst for starting MEMORIALS. The albums are clearly influenced by the world of the films, but still sound like the duo at their best, combining beautiful songwriting with improvised freakouts, inhabiting a world of controlled chaos. On these two records they move convincingly from psychedelic drones to jangly guitar pop, from choral harmonies to experimental sound college.