Especially for International Women’s Day 2021, we commissioned six artists to pay homage to their own personal Pop Icons – the result? ICONIC SONICS!
In celebration of some iconic womxn music makers and shakers, expect wild interpretations and creative covers of pop royalty presented by Lone Taxidermist, Godspeed You! Peter Andre, Conny Prantera, Blóm, Blue Ruth & Sofa King.
They are now all available to watch again on our YouTube channel for your pure viewing enjoyment! Get stuck in below…
LONE TAXIDERMIST covers Cosey Fan Tutti
Supersonic veteran, Natalie Sharp aka Lone Taxidermist is known in equal measure for her cosmic synth creations and otherworldly costume designs. Sharp is a disabled artist at the forefront of a new wave of underground musicians, creating immersive worlds for their audiences to participate in. Often working in non-conventional settings, she challenges existing frameworks and expectations whilst exploring issues around gender and sexuality, pain and the body. She effortlessly blends stagecraft with costumes, graphic art, video making, face paint, vocal technique, remixing and DJing, pushing the parameters of live settings.
“I feel like Cosey paved a way of doing art that deeply resonates with me. There’s a lot of parallels between us, not just because we’re from hard ass northern fighting towns and have sea fairing fathers but also because of her approach to art. Through actions and her own personal corporeal expression, Cosey puts her entire being into her art I can hard relate to that”
GODSPEED YOU! PETER ANDRE ft BEAU AZRA covers SOPHIE
This dark electronic duo are set to collide the world of pop royalty with deep industrial witch music. Based at the Islington Mill in Salford, the duo first met back in 2008 at a Fat Out gig (of Supersonic googly-eye fame). Together, they explore the realms of the dark psyche, taking the audience from depths of meditative intensity to rhythmic industrious beats.
CONNY PRANTERA (aka THE SEER) covers Nico
Artist Conny Prantera has built a striking career in illustration, video art, music and multimedia work that takes inspiration from symbolism and visionary art. Her creations are full of dark meditations on man’s relationship to the natural world and the historical vanquishing of matriarchal systems, drawing lineage from magic and esotericism through dreamwork and self introspections. Mostly performing as The Seer, she has produced a multitude of performances that take form as solo or collaborative pieces.
“My fascination with Nico has a lot to do with her as a performer and especially in the beautifully raw underground short The Inner Scar, a strange and spellbinding film by Philippe Garrel. Like the very few successful women artists of her times, Nico’s life was complicated and put under scrutiny in a way that her male counterparts never had to endure.”
BLÓM covers SOPHIE
Forming mid-way through 2017, Blóm describe themselves as “three cute punx playing pua radge shit”. Comprised of former members of Tough Tits and Yume Hayashi, Newcastle Upon Tyne’s Blóm fuse together genres to create their unique DIY Queer Feminist anthems. In 2020 Blóm released their debut album ‘FLOWER VIOLENCE’ on Box Records, and played only two shows: Borealis Festival (Norway) and TUSK Festival. This year they will be supporting Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs on their rescheduled 2021 UK Tour dates.
“We chose SOPHIE as she is a hugely inspirational artist and soul who has influenced us collectively and individually. This reworking of FACESHOPPING, has been dissected and reworked by BLÓM, recorded in our practice room, never to be played the same again. This is our tribute to a pioneer, it tastes good and it’s like moisturizer.”
BLUE RUTH covers Grace Jones
Noisy, synth led, electronic, industrial music with post-punk sensibilities. Blue Ruth is a semi-improv genre crossing experience by Kaila Whyte of Birmingham punk band Youth Man and noise-trio Pretty Grim.
“Grace Jones is just a badass. Firstly, her music and film career is iconic (her performance as Katrina in Vamp is a highlight!) And on a personal level, she’s one of few prominent people I can really recognise myself in. To see an androgynous, Jamaican woman who is sex-positive without being hyper-feminine is something I really valued as a child and still today.”
SOFA KING covers Kate Bush
Leeds based experimentalist Sofa King, is the musical output of pop-obsessed transgender individual Dianne Burdon. She treats reverb and feedback like a chemical formula with raucous clashes of Tetris-like guitar beeps.
“What’s important about Kate Bush is her ability to take risks without compromise, it’s why her music holds up, it’s both classic and timeless, something I aspire to with my music. She’s someone who understood what it took to sit at conception of pop as art, without watering anything down. ”
If you enjoyed this Iconic Sonics series, why not check out our Sofa Sabbath collection from last summer? We’ve also got many performances, panel talks, make-a-longs and more from our Sofasonic weekend over on our YouTube Channel. So make sure you Subscribe!