After an eon of surging up from the primeval sludge, shedding skin and sharpening teeth, SHE REX have arrived.
The band has been inciting hype with their previous singles and meteoric live show, crashing the stage with the likes of The Preatures, Stonefield, Children Collide, Regular John, Dune Rats, Sticky Fingers, British India and Die! Die! Die!. After championing a much-lauded headlining Sydney Residency; they’ve stepped up at the 11th Hour, showing us grit and P.O.W.E.R., with their self-titled acclaimed debut EP. In addition to their revered powerhouse set at BIGSOUND ‘13 conference and rave reviews, SHE REX have recently landed in the 2014 “ones to watch” list of The Music, Tone Deaf and Rolling Stone.
Although one of the Industries’ ‘buzziest’ acts, this totally unique creation is firmly cemented to a bedrock of substance, intelligence & purpose. With influences as diverse as Blackroc, M.I.A and Queens Of The Stone Age, SHE REX are undoubtedly the Queen Regents of rage-on-fire.
2014: Prepare yourself. SHE REX THE DEBUT EP BACKGROUND + NOTES
Spitting electric elocutions and savage rhymes is frontwoman Nikkita Rast, armed with fearsome flow and righteous fury. Tash Adams aka The Hitwoman wrecks up the rhythm, blasting backbeats with a Dave Grohl meets ?uestlove meets John Bonham appeal.
Triple threat Sarah Jullienne aka Sarwolf gives life to sound itself through synth, keys, and vocals, the second member of SHE REX’s slick vox brigade. Darcie Irwin-Simpson, the band’s resident electric lady, rounds out this explosive Molotov cocktail of femme as fuck rage and cunning beats, bringing with her a trademark fusion of classic rock riffs and chords with the slick trickiness of hip-hop.
Partially recorded in the halls of the iconic Studios 301, the girls were determined to not just push but smash the traditional frontier of music, shirking the shackles of cleanliness and played-out production values. They turned to Rancom Studios, one of the last remaining bastions of analogue stylings and fuzzy tube amps left in Sydney, where, in the expert hands of Tony Buchen (Tim Finn, The Preatures, Wim, John Butler Trio, Andy Bull, Gin Wigmore, Blue King Brown, Dereb The Ambassador, Washington and Old Man River), they delivered a firm ‘fuck you’ to the thin, digital, clean sound, instead producing a sound the band refers to as ‘Crunchy. Dirty. Warm. Primal’.
The result is a seething storm of Sarah’s skilful manipulation of keys, soulful vocals and creation of lush dirty synth (spanning everything from the Minimoog, Korg MS-20 to Juno 60, to the organ and a 1950s clavioline, to that old standard, the piano), Darcie’s use of the fuzzy tube amp sound and a truly formidable array of effects, Tash’s tricky ticking hi-hats and sneaky snares, banging out on a vintage Ludwig bass drum, all topped off with Nikkita’s frenzied flow mixed with fervent vocals. From the relentless churn of lead single P.O.W.E.R., to the grit of Get Yours, to the clever clash of The Heist, the EP rages on with themes of strength, human history and power. It pierces the soft underbelly of the pedestrian and the predictable, smashing together the influence of Blakroc, M.I.A., Queens of the Stone Age and John Lennon into something unprecedented and undeniably SHE REX.
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