Folk Bitch Trio - Now Would Be A Good Time [CD]

Folk music has a bad habit of being presented as a deathlyserious concern. It's something you cry to, it's overly sacred, it'ssolemnly considered by critic-historians. But Folk Bitch Trio, formerhigh school friends Heide Peverelle (they/them), Jeanie Pilkington(she/her) and Gracie Sinclair (she/her), have a shared sense of humourthat is embedded deep in their music, and that sets it alight, safefrom the self-serious traps of the genre.Now Would Be A Good Time, their debut album, tells vivid,visceral stories, and is funny and darkly ironic in the manner of writerslike Mary Gaitskill or Otessa Moshfegh. Their music sounds familiar,but the songs are modern, youthful, singing acutely throughdissociative daydreams and galling breakups, sexual fantasies andmedia overload, all the petty resentments and minor humiliations ofbeing in your early twenties in the 2020s."Cathode Ray" opens with caution, it's first harmoniesarriving in big, looping sighs. It's vulnerable but a little menacing, witha wide open chorus and a spacious, airy beat anchoring everything."Moth Song", a song about unrequited love and "being so spun out byeverything that you feel like you're delusional and hallucinating crazythings," forms the album's spare centrepiece, Anita Clark's undulatingviolin part drifting in and out of focus as if from a dream.Other songs aren't as oblique, instead chronicling brutallyfamiliar moments at the end of relationships: The tense, emotionallyvolatile torch song "The Actor", says Peverelle, is about "going to yourpartner's one-woman show and then getting broken up with". "HotelTV", a hypnotic, late-night reverie, is about "having a sex dream aboutsomebody else while next to your partner, and your partner being aliar," explains Pilkington.The strongest link between the trio, aside from friendship, ismusic. "We all talked about loving music when we were growing up,and knowing we wanted music to be a big part of our lives," saysPilkington. That feeling-of music as an innate calling, as opposed tohobby or folly-was justified: Folk Bitch Trio have already touredacross Australia, Europe and the US, supporting bands as disparate asKing Gizzard, Alex G and Julia Jacklin. They've signed withJagjaguwar, a home for singular icons and iconoclasts (Bon Iver,Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten, UMO and others), and they've foundtheir first diehard fans with dazzling harmonies and acerbic lyricismthat transcend genre expectations and audience lines.These are the stakes: Learning how to live a life free oflovesickness and loser exes, when to sink into contemporary nihilismand when to have a laugh with your friends, and why being alive canfeel so ephemeral and unreal. In this sense, Now Would Be A GoodTime feels like a manual for modern living: a missive from three proudFolk Bitches finding beauty and wisdom where they can, together.