Screaming Mimi / Repomen - Who is Louise ?/Trophy

  by John Clarkson

published: 15 / 10 / 2006

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Review

Phantom Power Records is a new independent record label from Sheffield. With the music industry’s current preoccupation with Sheffield, and local bands such as the Arctic Monkeys, Milburn and Little Man Tate all having signed major label deals in the last 18 months, Phantom Power Records’ worthy manifesto is to help to give a focus to some of the city’s lesser-known indie groups which have until now been passed over, and to gain them a wider audience. For its first offering, which has been pressed on 7” vinyl in a limited edition of 500 copies, it has chosen to release a double A sided single which features a track each from local acts, country/surf punks Screaming Mimi and new wave pop act the Repomen. Screaming Mimi’s contribution, ‘Who is Louise ?’, is a snappy country-tinged number with blusteringly acrobatic vocals from singer Loretta Chantry and an appropriately- whacked out lyric about an amnesiac who has just found herself dumped by a boyfriend she doesn’t remember. Speeding guitars merge with a scratchily spiralling bass line and fiery drum work in a hectic, but catchy and convincing song which breathlessly thunders it way to its conclusion in two minutes. The Repomen song, ‘Trophy’, is darker and more menacing, but of equal appeal. The band has made an art form in recent years out of creating in its lyrics strong narrative tales with a twist. ‘Trophy’ is no exception, telling in its macabre story of post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans of the abused having turned abuser, and a rich victim of the hurricane who falls prey to one of the Louisiana lower classes, who, with what little he has taken from him, decides to take her as both a trophy and scalp in payback for all that he has been made to suffer (“I lost my house/Nobody cares/I watched my life just disappear/In truth there wasn’t much to lose/but I still take it out on you”). Singer Denzil Watson’s gleefully nasty vocals combine with jangling Buzzcocks-style guitars and a surging, searing keyboard which eventually thrusts up to take centre stage. Phantom Power Records has got off to a fantastic start with this first record. With a second release, a single from art punks Balor Knights, lined up for release in January, it will hopefully continue to release strong records of this quality which show off that there is a lot more to Sheffield’s music scene than just that which is currently riding high in the charts for a long while to come.

Track Listing:-

1 Screaming Mimi- Who Is Louise?
2 RepoMen- Trophy