Vivian Girls

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• Genre: Lo-Fi
• Hometown: Brooklyn
• Vivian Girls Website

About

Much like Blood on the Wall and Sic Alps, the Vivian Girls pay homage to classic indie pop, namely the distorto-soaked twee of Scrawl, Velocity Girl, Black Tambourine, Talulah Gosh and Tiger Trap. Named after the protagonists of outsider artist Henry Darger's now legendary manuscript The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, the group came together in Brooklyn in 2007. In a matter of months the trio of Cassie Ramone, Kickball Katy and Frankie Rose (who eventually left the band) recorded a five song demo and played a string of gigs, often with fellow New Yorkers Woods and Crystal Stilts. With Ali bashing away simple, Moe Tucker-like beats, Cassie and Katy chirp about boys, youth and insecurity, as if they're a late '60s bubblegum act dipped in a vat of shoegazing fuzz. In 2008, the Girls cranked up their recording schedule, releasing a slew of seven-inches (those little, round discs that contain two, sometimes three songs) and a self-titled album on the Mauled by Tigers imprint. Although the record's first pressing quickly sold out, the longtime garage rock label In the Red reissued it several months later.

- Justin Farrar