Thursday, April 28, 2011

New band of the day ? No 1,012: Stooshe

Beneath the crude charm of this trio's raunch-pop, there's a proper grown-up girl group waiting to come out

Hometown: London.

The lineup: Courtney Rumbold, Alex Buggs and Karis Anderson.

The background: If we hadn't spent the past few days listening to every one of the 16 Odd Future albums available to download for free from their website ? an experience that we can only imagine is comparable to being cooped up for 72 hours in an abattoir with a locust abortion technician ? then we might have been slightly shocked by new girl trio Stooshe's mildly sensational debut single. But we did, so we weren't. Nevertheless, it is called Fuck Me and it contains lyrics such as, "Foreplay's fine but I ain't got the time", references to chocolate and "double helpings" that put the "gel" into Nigella Lawson and a chorus that doesn't mince words, mainly because they're more into sweet stuff than savouries. "Hurry up ? fuck me," it goes, delivered with all the salacious glee of Jordan on a night down at the Automat, or do we mean laundromat?

By the time you get to the halfway mark ? the technical term is probably bridge, but we'd have to check ? the girls start coming (oo-er) over like an X-rated En Vogue ("free your mind ? and the rest I'll swallow") and warning would-be suitors, "Don't be giving me no pearl necklace ? you know I only like diamond rings". The climax (enough already) finds them doing rude things to nursery rhymes ("Hey diddle diddle, my cat needs a fiddle"). Meanwhile, the Day-Glo, Deee-Lite-ful video starts off with one of the girls' pants round her ankles in a toilet and ends with Suave Debonair, the guest rapper in a fake moustache who resembles a comedy 1970s porn star or gigolo, being covered in foam.

There is also a polite version of the single called Love Me simultaneously available on iTunes. But even if there wasn't, take away the Carry On sauce and you can tell there's a proper grown-up soul-infused girl-pop group in Stooshe waiting to come out. It's there in the music to Fuck/Love Me, with its Motown beat and melody half-inched from Express Yourself (the Madonna one, not the NWA one) that makes us think of early-80s sassy combos such as Amazulu and Belle Stars. Like them, Stooshe are a mixed affair, comprising a blonde 18-year-old with shaved hair and a penchant for jazz and rap (Courtney), a 20-year-old into "ghetto chic" (Alex) and a 21-year-old former ballet dancer turned Brits brat (Karis). As yet they're unsigned, but as with Odd Future one can't help worrying that, on a major label, all the rough edges will be smoothed away, removing all the original crude charm. Although if that reads like a request for 16 albums' worth of this stuff, it isn't.

The buzz: "When does the album drop? I need it. Bad" ? poptrashaddicts.blogspot.com.

The truth: All hail the fairly mighty Stooshe.

Most likely to: Swear.

Least likely to: Duet with Earl Sweatshirt.

What to buy: Fuck Me and Love Me are both available on iTunes.

File next to: Belle Stars, Amazulu, Betty Boo, All Saints.

Links: facebook.com.

Thursday's new band: Funeral Suits.


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